A Pair of Monsters
by Higekimaru
Summary: An OC-driven plot. Decades after the completion of the Nine-Day War, a man is dropped off in the Rukongai with no knowledge of who he is, in the shape of a monster. He adopts the name Higekimaru, and resolves to join the Gotei Thirteen in order to gain control of his affliction and find others like him. Will eventually contain MxM anthro themes. Rated M for language. OCs needed.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is the first time I've really written...anything. I hope this story, which has been fermenting in my head for a while, turns out well. If you have ANY useful advice, criticism, or suggestions please PM me or leave it in the comments. I'll try and update this as often as possible. I hope you enjoy what I have to offer.**

**8/11/13: I've made some small changes regarding the Rukongai's market. Hopefully, this won't be a habit. And for all two of my devoted readers, if there's anything you're aware of that needs corrected concerning canon, grammar, sentence structure, etc., then please drop me a line. We all want this story to turn out. Also, since the Academy's coming up in two or three chapters, I could use a few OCs. They'll probably be minor characters, unless I'm taken by them. Consider any type of future love triangle out of the question. Go ahead and submit one in the comments; and don't make them perfect. No geniuses, no incredibly kind human beings, no nonhuman characters. Just a description and rough character sketch, please. Thank you all.**

**8/20/13: Hopefully the last alteration to this chapter. I changed the currency to the canon Kan, and am uploading chapter two.**

**10/5/13: I'm fixing typos I failed to notice before.**

**A/N: This is the first time I've really written...anything. I hope this story, which has been fermenting in my head for a while, turns out well. If you have ANY useful advice, criticism, or suggestions please PM me or leave it in the comments. I'll try and update this as often as possible. I hope you enjoy what I have to offer.**

**Chapter One: Orientation**

I opened my eyes and blinked as a starry sky came into view. Slowly pushing myself into a cross-legged sitting position, I took in my surroundings. An empty field, gently sloping into a dense forest that surrounded it on all sides. I was in the middle of it. Naked. At this realization, I glanced down reflexively, only to be stunned at what I saw.

I was human. Or, rather, I identified as human, because...what other option is there? Yet, as I looked at my body, the immediate answer that sprang to the fore of my mind was _monster._

Instead of human skin, there was flat, stubbly black fur. My hands and my feel looked like a typical human's, save for the fur, pads on the insides of my hands and the soles of my feet, and the fact that I lacked fingernails and toenails.

I stood up to further examine my body. I had a tail that fell to mid-calf. It twitched with my anxiety, keeping a slower accentuating beat to my frenetic pulse.

I brought my hands to my face, trying to determine if my facial structure shared my body's eccentricities. It did, appearing to my crude examination to be feline, resplendent with sharp canines, pointed ears and whiskers. I began to grow hysterical. I didn't know where I was, or who I was, or even _what_ I was.

My sense of hearing, I realized, was extremely sensitive.. Even alone, in an empty field at night, there were more sounds than I could count. My pulse was audible to me, a faint repetitive drumming on my inner ear. There were innumerable small noises surrounding me; crackling twigs, rustling vegetation stirred by the wind, the scents of decay and animals, and a thousand other nuances, each more esoteric than the last. Within a minute if trying to parse through all of the information, I felt a migraine building. I sunk into a sitting position, eyes shut tight fingers gnarled against my forehead.

I felt a sliding sensation in my fingertips, followed immediately my a piercing pain in my forehead that temporarily shut out all of the sensory input I was being assailed by.

I grabbed on to the pain, hiding behind it, putting more pressure on my claws—they were the cause of my pain, feline claws that had slid out from their sheaths in my fingertips as I clenched my fingers against my skull. I pulled them away roughly, trying to drown the noise and the smells, only to add the scent of my own blood to the fray. I gazed blearily at my fingers. The curved ivory claws were coated in red. The new display of my monstrosity conspired with my hypersensitivity to break me down. I didn't know where, or who, or _what _I was.

With a screeching roar of abject terror, I was consumed.

**ѠѠѠ**

I reawakened around dawn after falling into a deep sleep, the kind that follows an emotional release. Shivering and wet from dew that had collected on my body overnight, my practical side took over. I considered my priorities as I wiped mucus tears off my face.

First and foremost, I needed shelter. It was cold, early-winter-in-Germany cold. Or maybe I was just chilled from the night air. I didn't know how to start a fire, and I was already feeling the effects of exposure. Clothing and food were also important. Hunger was beginning to set in. As I climbed to my feet, it occurred to me that I didn't know my name, my birthplace, or if I had any loved ones. I had impersonal knowledge; a simple set of tests told me that I could name countries, chains of stores, famous books, and common names. I just didn't know anything about _me._

That vacuum that rested in place of my self-knowledge and memories left me feeling baseless; I had no ties to anything or anyone. A nomad out of place in his own skin. _If I find civilization,_ I thought, _I may be able to shed some light on my situation. _I began gingerly walking forward, following a foggy mixture of scents carried aloft on the wind . The sense of overstimulation was still there, but reduced from the headache-inducing sensory explosion of a few hours previous. It was becoming less noticeable, a curtain of ambient aural and olfactory white noise falling over my surroundings.

Within two hours of continual walking, I began detecting signs of civilization, namely the malodorous cacophony endemic to densely populated areas. Crouching down behind a swathe of some sort of tall grass, I peered into the town.

My eyes, I discovered, were lacking in the ability to detect color; most shades of what should have been blue looked greyish to me. The newly lit sky? Grey. The colorful shawl-like garment worn by a little girl? Greyish-red. Other than blue, most colors seemed only slightly distorted or muted.

Newfound visual impairment aside, I noted that the village was occupied solely by humans. The villagers seemed to be of Hindu descent, since they shared a brownish skin tone and many dressed in vibrant robes or other wrappings. A pang of hunger swept over me. I frowned, or rather rearranged my face to the closest natural-feeling simulacrum of human concern possible. If none of these people were what I was, then I could potentially be attacked, imprisoned, or even executed. It seemed like it would be a sizable period of time until dusk, so sitting and waiting wasn't an option. With that fact in mind, I began walking parallel to the edge of the village, remaining concealed in undergrowth.

**ѠѠѠ**

Several hours of walking later, the forested area I was relying on for concealment began to peter out. Going by the ambient noise present at the wooded area's termination, the village had begun to curve towards my forest, in a sort of 'L' shape. On the way here, I had noticed numerous signs, some with both text and numbers, some with just text. Despite the changing composition of the communities—I had already passed out of the section inhabited by Indian men and women, and on to what appeared to be a Muslim district—the signs were all in the same language. I hadn't had a decent opportunity to read any of them while skulking around behind a layer of cover, but the script was the same between them. Setting aside the oddities associated with the various communities sharing a language in favor of remedying my nudity, I thought, _I need to get higher. Figure out where there's a bazaar or market I can steal some clothing from come nightfall._

_ Steal. _Thievery seemed...beneath me. I had no resources, but I couldn't bring myself to accept thievery as anything other than repulsive.

I refocused on my objective, discarding all emotions for the time being. Eying a tree with particularly sturdy-looking branches, I considered the viability of climbing it. _Seems like I have claws like cats do. I could probably climb trees like them. _Shrugging, I pushed down my rebellious emotions once more and set myself up to try.

Putting six steps between the tree and myself, I unsheathed the claws in my fingers and flexible toes several times, in an effort to get a feel for it. Rolling my shoulders, I paused before sprinting at the tree. As my right foot came into contact with the bark, I tensed my toes and pushed upwards, propelling me a solid eight inches upwards. Following with an alternating pattern of hands and feet, I scrabbled up to a branch around three meters above the ground. Crouching there, I chose another branch, another three meters up, and began to pull myself through the branches like an ape.

Settling into my position, I looked down on the village. _I can't continue calling it a village much longer, can I? It's pretty expansive, _I reflected. I could see buildings extending to the horizon, where I observed some sort of distant fort or walled city, probably about twenty kilometers away from my position. Crawling forward further on the bough, I peered through a cluster of leaves, searching for one of those signs I had noticed before. This one was hand-painted and read thusly:

Welcome to the 41st Rukongai District.

Crime will not be tolerated.

New Soul Orientation in Market Plaza

7:00 PM Every Other Weekday

Rukongai. That was the name of the city. It likely had more than thirty-nine districts, since I'd seen similar signs in other, more impoverished areas on the way here, suggesting that the districts became more affluent the lower their ordinal number. This one was pretty far up there; the buildings looked to be made out of handmade bricks and the roads were paved with dirt. There was an orientation of some kind that could likely offer some insight into where I was. Searching for the plaza mentioned on the sign, I picked out an area clear of buildings, from which the babble of many conversations could be faintly heard. _And that's the next place I should go, _I decided. _It'll probably going to be another few hours until seven, though. I'll bet that the market stalls close before dusk, since this seems to be a fairly traditional community. They don't have twenty-four hour convenience stores. _I picked out a path to take that would end with me on top of one of the buildings surrounding the market.

A troubling realization suddenly hit me. I'd need to steal some clothing that concealed my body if I wanted to attend that orientation. It was fortunate this was a Muslim community; there were plenty of women in burqas milling about.

I climbed down, hesitantly dropping the last three meters to the forest floor. The location of the plaza had been obvious enough. I recalled the route I had plotted to get there. Down an alley, up the side of an approximately ten-meter building, and straight across the rooftops to until I reached the edge of the market area. Now came the hardest part: waiting for the streets to clear momentarily.

In retrospect, the waiting wasn't difficult because of the gnawing hunger; the cramps disappeared after a while. Nor was it the cold that made it difficult; the day heated up quickly, and my fur absorbed the sun's heat. It was the time I had to think, and what I did with it.

_ Maybe this is a psychotic episode,_ I thought. _Maybe I'm a coma patient. Maybe I'm high off my mind on some hallucinogen. _And on and on. Maybe this, maybe that, _maybe, maybe, maybe_! I knew nothing, and that nothingness devoured the frayed edges of the cocoon I'd built around my rational mind to protect it from my own emotions. I tried to put the matter out of mind, and failed. Every time I tried to distract myself, my attention was brought back to it with a vengeance. Time seemed to move with all the vivacity and speed of tectonic drift.

Eventually, I began to further inspect my body, deciding that there were worse delusions or psychotic breaks to be had, and resolving to find a mirror as soon as possible. Apart from my musculature, basic skeletal structure, and proportions, I was nearly entirely feline. This raised the question as to whether or not there were other people like me. Unless they were all hiding under their burqas, the inhabitants of Rukongai—_Sounds Asian,_ I reflected—were entirely human, or at least that I could see. Once the sun was several hours past the midpoint of its journey, I began moving.

I decided to move at that time because I could hear the Rukongian people praying as a group, voices swelling in unison as they followed Islamic tradition. After checking for passerby in all directions, I eyed the base of the wall I was to climb. Running through the steps in my mind, I recited to myself, _Sprint down alleyway until sharp turn. Climb wall as quickly and safely as possible. Move to edge of plaza, find and follow clothing merchant. Mug in alleyway like some pathetic bastard of a thief. _Collecting myself, I counted down from five.

On three, I tensed my legs and prepared to push off.

On two, time seemed to slow slightly as I stared at my target.

On one I went for it.

Sprinting at a speed that shocked myself, I led with my right foot as before, followed by my left hand, then my left foot. My claws dug into the soft mortar of the building and pulled away with surprising ease. Around the halfway mark, my left foot slipped without finding purchase. At the same time, I heard the prayer conclude.

_ Fuck._

My right foot followed my left, leaving me hanging with only my left hand hanging from a crevice. An involuntary gasp left my lips as my body swung from left to right and back again, my momentum from earlier working against me. A fall from this height could be bad. I quickly brought my right hand up, swinging it like a climber would an ice pick. Biting back a grunt and praying nobody saw me, I began scrabbling with my feet again,successfully catching hold and pushing myself up to resume my ascent.

Reaching the top with no other issues, I took the time to sit down and allow my pulse to slow. I could hear it even when I was calm, but after such a vigorous exercise, it was pounding with all the impact of a massive bass drum. While allowing myself to regain my stamina, I marveled at the ease with which climbing had come to me. It was slightly difficult when I first tried it, but now, on my second attempt, it seemed to be second nature. Climbing to my feet, I moved in a crouch, hoping to avoid being noticed. There were ladders on some buildings leading to the rooftops. While I couldn't imagine why someone would use them in the middle of the afternoon, there were no guarantees.

Truthfully, it was a boon that those rooftops were uneven. The side of the block of buildings facing the market and adjacent alleyways was at least four meters lower than the one I had scaled. That difference in height, I knew, would prevent me from being silhouetted by the sun, which was going to set behind me. So long as I stuck to the base of the wall of the taller block, I would be hidden by the stark shadow.

I moved into position, eyeing the merchants for one suitable to my needs. It was unsavory, but necessary, I concluded, to go for the most fragile I could find. _Most of them are strong men, _I noted with irritation.

There was one that looked to be a perfect target. She was an elderly woman, obviously past her prime, but with an appearance of affability notable even from a distance of fifty-odd meters. She was especially notable because, besides being the oldest of the merchants I had seen, she was also the only woman without a burqa. Any concerns I might have had about her wares, which I couldn't clearly see from my hiding spot, were assuaged when I saw a man examining a dark blue burqa, which he held up to examine. He said something to the woman, who laughed and responded. Angling my ears, I dropped onto my still unclothed stomach and crawled forward, only to find the marketplace chatter to be insurmountable.

_ That conversation was probably trivial anyway. _The man handed the woman a parcel, then left with his purchase. _They seem to trade and barter goods, instead of currency, _I hypothesized. Similar transactions took place with other vendors, although I also noticed coins changing hands at select stalls. _ I can learn about this city's economy later, I suppose._

At this point, noting that the sun indicated it was around five o'clock, I settled into the shade once again to wait. I began playing the guessing game with myself again.

**ѠѠѠ**

When the marketplace began closing down, I was already ready and rearing to go. The hunger pangs had returned with a vengeance, and I was thirsty. The sooner I got concealing clothing, the sooner I could find food. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen a single food stall, and none of the vendors had eaten anything that I was aware of in the past several hours. I chalked it up to scarcity of food. My mark began collecting her wares and packing them into a crate. In response, I got up and quickly circumnavigated the plaza via the rooftops, hoping that no one had seen the darting shadow.

The woman took the alleyway nearest to her stall, which was unfortunately crowded. I waited for her to turn off into a smaller, less populous one, but she instead clung to to the edges of the crowd until she reached a door with a small window set immediately adjacent. I watched as she entered her home, stymied.

**ѠѠѠ**

The crowd thinned rapidly, to my relief. If I was fast enough, I could get in and out without missing the orientation. After the last stragglers passed, I dropped into the alleyway, and forgoing the locked door, dove through the window, which had no glass. _At this point, _I decided, _it's not a question of stealth. It's a question of whether people believe her, and whether she's alone in that house. _ I dropped to the floor of a small foyer, which led through an arch of similar scale to a bedroom outfitted with equipment used by seamstresses.

My mark, by coincidence had just turned to face in my direction. Our eyes met, and she opened her mouth to scream.

I lunged at her before she got the opportunity, toppling her and I both to the floor. Hoping to avoid injuring her any more, I put my claws to her throat and a hand over her mouth and straddled her. Unsure of whether she would understand me when I spoke, I cleared my throat awkwardly and whispered "I don't want to hurt you. I need a burqa, and I need it now. I'll take my hand off your mouth, and get off of you, and if you remain silent, we'll both walk away unharmed. Alright?"

She nodded frantically,tears welling in her eyes. I could smell her fear, a sharp and sour smell mixed with the scent of urine. At the sight of her fear ad vulnerability, I suddenly felt something well up within me. A tension in my stomach and chest. The desire to...chase, attack, and devour.My compassion and morals were consumed by the monster in my chest who had just raised his head, if only for an instant. Fighting back the horror and shame I felt, I stood away from my victim and clamped down on an impassive mask, dragging it over my already naturally stoic features. I pulled her up, and she fled into a corner, immediately taking a white burqa out of a chest she had stored there. She avoided looking at me the entire time.

After ensuring it fit, taking a pair of sandals, and hiding my digits, I turned to leave and hesitated, shame swelling in me like a monster, one to accompany the one I'd just met. My last words to her were "I...I'm sorry. Thank you."

As I departed the scene of my crime, I gave into my emotions, letting the revulsion wash over me. Beneath the burqa, my face was contorted into a grimace that probably only made me appear less human.

_ What was that? _ I immediately realized the answer to my own question. I had been an feline monster for nearly a day then. I was a predator. I existed to feed on other creatures. Like people. I stopped near the mouth of the alley, and lost my tenuous hold on the second monster. Silently, I began to weep.

After a brief period of time, I crushed my emotions for the sake of practicality, bespeaking a well-developed sense of self-control I didn't own. Drying my tears against the inside of my new clothing, I swallowed and strode forward.

There were two young women, both blonde, equipped with what appeared to be katana, and clad in black robes towards the center of the marketplace. Several dozen other men, women, and children stood in an arc around the duo. I joined the crowd, relieved that I could blend in. The one of the women checked what I assumed to be the time on a phone before beginning to speak, looking somewhat unenthusiastic.

"Alright, it's seven, so...let's begin. My name is Takashi Haruna, my partner is Yamada Keiko. How many of you are disoriented or unsure of where you are?" The entire group raised their hands, the children looking up to accompanying adults who, judging by their jaded countenances, had been through this before. The second woman, Yamada Keiko, continued and said, "Put your hands down if you remember your names." The adults put their hands down, leaving only the children and I. Yamada nudged her colleague and pointed at me. I heard her whisper, "Takashi-san, what should we do about that? It's not in the guidebook." Takashi raised one of her penciled brows in surprise. "Same as the kids, I guess."

Continuing their oration, Takashi stepped forward and announced, " I have news that will explain where you are. Take the youngest kids away, please, and explain everything to them as you see fit. The rest of you, sit down." We followed the order as the youngest children were ushered away by their companions. Takashi said "This will come as a shock to all of you, I'm sure, but remain calm. You have all...passed on. This is the afterlife."

Several things happened simultaneously; the remaining children began to cry or look confused, my stomach dropped to my feet, and the adults looked at the women with expressions ranging from fear to disgust, outrage, and disbelief.

A man dressed in slovenly western clothes with a three-day stubble stood up and pointed at Takashi. "Bullshit! I don't know who you people are, but you can't just go and say that to people! Especially not kids! I mean, look at them!" He pointed at the children, almost all of whom were in tears now. "Why are you doing this? Who are you?"

As he opened his mouth to continue his rant, an emaciated man dressed in rags grabbed his shoulder and calmly muttered "Sir, calm down. What they're saying makes sense."

The slovenly man brushed him off and turned his ire on the beggar. "What are you, an idiot?! This is probably some...some scam or something. Hell, I bet you're all in on it!"

_ Moron._ I snorted. It seemed ridiculous, or rather it would have if I was endowed with a less..._exotic _physique, but what the women were saying made a certain amount of sense. I had been unsure of where I was, there was no way I was like this for my entire life, and to my knowledge, there was no multicultural city named Rukongai. Furthermore, the man, who, I realized upon applying closer scrutiny, was likely an addict of some kind. A group generally not known for erudition or clear thinking, which led me to discount what he said on principal. The addict continued his rant only to be interrupted by Yamada stepping forward.

Smiling sweetly, she cut over his running monologue with an enviable smoothness. "You think we're lying. What if I was to something that would be impossible for a human to do?" My ears twitched. _Not human?_ The addict began to offer a meaningless retort, but then yelped like the dog he was when, without changing her expression, Yamada quickly swept her left index finger crossways and sonorously intoned, "Sai!" A strange_...vibration_ passed through the market square. The addict's arms were abruptly pulled behind him by an invisible force, and he fell to the side, speech halted in favor of terrified silence. He began screaming as I stared at Yamada.

I was surprised to notice that my fascination and desire to hold that power outweighed my fear. _That's impossible. Or rather, it should be,_ I thought to myself. But it had just happened, and I could perceive no evidence of trickery of any kind.

None of my fellows seemed to feel the same way that I did. They began shifting and standing, nervous murmurs building into a crescendo reminiscent of a disturbed bees' nest.

Yamada looked across the crowd. "Ladies and gentleman," she began, "please relax." She smiled again, and said quietly, "Actually, this is a convenient segue." She raised her voice again and continued "You'll all hear about how that happened in a few moments. There's nothing to be afraid of. Now let me tell you about the Shin'ō Academy, Shinigami, and the realities of your new life."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Here's the second chapter. I'm aware how badly this has sucked thus far, and I promise it'll get better once I introduce a few characters to add to the dynamics. I still greatly need OCs; I have user Komamura's Son to thank for providing his OC and helpful council on possible plot points. I've nailed down the story's time frame, and will follow canon as closely as possible, but given the obscure nature of Komamura's origins, the Kidō Corps, etc., I will extrapolate when necessary. Comments of any kind are welcome. But seriously, comment. I'm needy. I'm sorry if this seems rushed, but nothing interesting will happen until chapter three onward. If you notice any errors, let me know.**

**10/5/13: Just me...fixing typos...**

**Chapter Two: The Subject at Hand**

Yamada continued on subject. "Let's start with the mundane facts of life. First and foremost, you probably won't need to eat. I'm sure most of you have noticed the lack of both food vendors and your sense of hunger. If you do feel hunger, stick around after we finish up here; we'll give you a bit of food. Now, I'm sure some of you will want to track down a dead lover or family member from your past life." She paused. "Now this might sting, but...don't bother, it's statistically improbable that you will find them. If you even remember them, which you may not; it's normal to quickly forget your past life."

My jaw tightened. _Who does she think she is, telling us to give up on trying to find our loved ones? Call me a romantic, but there's no reason not to try._ Something new to learn about myself: I was a bit of a romantic. I wasn't sure if I liked that fact. The bit about forgetting, that was noteworthy to me. I decided to ask if it was normal to not have any recollection of your past life, after the orientation concluded. I'd also stay put; I was starving.

Immediately after Yamada finished her piece, Takashi turned to point at the distant walled city I had noticed earlier. She said, "That is Sereitei. The headquarters of the Shinigami military organization, and the center of the Rukongai. You may have noticed that this was marked as the 41st district. The districts increase in number and decrease in affluence as they spiral out from Sereitei. The district you are reborn into is determined by your time and place of death. Unless you are a special type of soul, you can expect to live a typical period of time before dying and being reborn into the world of the living. Any questions so far?"

A wealthy-looking woman in business clothing raised her hand. At Takashi's encouragement, she asked, "Can we move up through the districts?"

_A question we all want to ask, _I thought.

Takashi cocked her head as she formulated an answer. "Well...yes and no. You can, but the first dozen or so districts are filled to the brim, and don't expect any vacancies elsewhere—overpopulation's a problem as is. Although, you could possibly move up through the districts, it might be hard to find a place to live, and being homeless is basically the same everywhere. Anyone else?"

The beggar from earlier lifted a hand after a moment's thought."Um, how do we make money? Even if we don't need to eat, which I'm happy for, I can still feel cold. I need clothing." Yamada fielded this question with a display of unabashed unconcern as she replied, "Look for a job. Although money isn't really a thing in the Rukongai; it's more common to trade on labor or barter." The man bowed his head in acceptance.

After pausing for any other questions and receiving none, Yamada resumed control of the orientation. Stepping forward, she began, "Listen up here. This is where things might get a little confusing. Each of you is a human soul, right? Your past life is no longer important; you'll forget it soon enough, unless you're a kid, in which case you won't remember any of it to begin with. Soul Society, the general term for the Rukongai , Sereitei, and everywhere else on this plane, is massive, and civilian social order relies on you guys helping each other. This far away from Sereitei, there's no real law enforcement or state care. If you find a kid, take care of 'em; they're more likely to need food than someone who's born as an adult. Also, if you feel hunger, or know someone who does, try and get them to Sereitei. The Shinigami military, or Gotei Thirteen, offers a decent life and an abundance of food, in addition to abilities and longevity you would normally never have. Also, there's a threat you need to be aware of; creatures called hollows. They're human spirits that didn't make it here. After a while, they turn into monsters that prey on souls. They typically have white mask-like faces, you can't mistake 'em. If you see one, send someone to Sereitei to get a Shinigami to come and kill it. Before I keep on, are there any more questions?"

Three others in addition to myself raised their hands. Yamada pointed to me. "Ladies first." I scowled under my burqa. Unsure of whether my voice would sound humanenough to use in public, I cleared my throat and asked, "What was that restraining technique? And, ah, will I be taught how to do it if I join the Gotei Thirteen?"

Yamada chuckled and nudged Takashi before answering. "Oh, this one's ambitious, I can tell. That was a kidō. They're a basic part of the curriculum of Relinquishment, the Shinigami training school."

I smiled to myself slightly. If there had been any question about my joining the Gotei Thirteen,it was answered. The power to do the impossible was tempting, to be sure. Also, perhaps I could find a way to become human. That kidō was, for all intents and purposes, magic, after all.

Takashi took the next question, from the addict who had burst out earlier. Looking slightly sheepish, he asked, "Where can we get supplies, and stuff like alcohol?"

_He's_ a_n alcoholic then. _I snorted to myself, surprising myself with my own judgmental reaction, then immediately felt more ashamed.

Takashi took the question with an impressively straight face. "Well, nonfood items, you'll either have to make or trade for them. There are a lot of bars and gambling houses further out. They use their own currency. Their are some shops near Sereitei too, but they take Kan, the Shinigami currency, which you could get by selling things to Shinigami or other people who have Kan. Don't expect to find much this far out, though, unless a family's got someone in the Gotei Thirteen"

A question occurred to me then, but the next man asked it before I could. He was a fairly young black man. Shifting under Yamada's gaze, he asked, "What did you mean by when you said that you weren't human? You said "impossible for a human to do," when you cast that—that kidō, right?" Yamada waved her hand airily. "We Shinigami technically aren't human, since most souls in the Gotei Thirteen are functionally immortal. Think of the distinction as semantics."

I closed my eyes in disappointment. I had hoped that there might be things like what I was amongst the ranks of the Gotei Thirteen. _And immortality...that could be a double-edged sword._

The last of us four raised her hand. She was a young woman of what appeared to be Hispanic descent. "Why is it," she began, frowning, "that I can understand everybody here? That woman," she said, nodding at me, "is a Muslim. She should be speaking a language different from mine."

I resolved to find a new disguise.

Takashi yawned. "I didn't mention that, did I? You all retain your ethnicities, but not your native tongue. Souls share a universal language, so you could hold a conversation with any soul you came across, theoretically. Oh, and one more thing, I assume you all remember your deaths at least vaguely, right?"

Uncomfortable nods all around, except from me.

"That's normal; eventually, you may forget it, along with the details of your past life" continued Takashi. Now, before we wrap this up, two pieces of parting advice: one, stay out of the outer districts. Life there is difficult and short. Two, get someone more experienced whom you can rely on. That's all you need to know. I know it's a lot to take in. Now unless you're feeling hungry, I suggest you go to find somewhere to stay. And by suggest you find somewhere to stay, I mean order."

The majority of the throng left the marketplace, leaving only me and two others, the woman who had just asked a question and a young man barely out of his teens. I approached Takashi.

"Before you begin, I wanted to know if it's normal to not know your own name, or anything about yourself, or cause of...you know," I asked hoarsely, concerned about my increasingly apparent abnormality.

Takashi shook her head. "No, it's very strange that you don't remember your name. Do you know anything about yourself at all?"

I paused, considering, just to be sure. "No; I only hold abstract knowledge. For example, I know where different countries are located, and I'm familiar with the English language, I think. I have a handle on things like that, but I don't know anything else about myself, other than what I've deduced."

Takashi's brow furrowed. "Well, you need a name," she began. "So let's do what we do with people who are reborn as kids. Pick a name."

Naming myself. To call this important would be an understatement. This name would be immutable, a constant representation of myself that would endure long after I ceased to exist. "Alright. This is a big deal. Give me a moment to think about it."

Takashi shrugged, looking casually interested. "Yeah, fine. It's your party." She grinned. "Just let me know what you choose."

I smiled under my covering and bowed slightly. "Will do."

As I retreated to give Yamada and Takashi room to begin the rest of the orientation, Takashi called to me, "It's none of my business, but why are you wearing a burqa if you're male? I could tell by your voice." I stopped with my back to her, securing the second mask I had created less than an hour earlier, the one that went unseen.

Swallowing, I slid past the question. "It's...a long story. I have my reasons."

She shrugged again, taking my evasion for what it was.

_I really need to master that of not giving a fuck, _I thought. I was getting better at hiding myself with every passing hour. I took my place next to the the two others.

"Here, dig in, but don't eat all of it," Yamada politely said as she handed each of us several small and cheap boxes, each with a meal's worth of food inside. I stashed mine inside the surprisingly spacious sleeves of my burqa.

"Alright, now for information the kids didn't need to hear. The fact that you three are hungry means that you each have some amount of reiatsu. Spiritual pressure. The nitty gritty specifics of what that means aren't important. Just know it's a prerequisite for being a Shinigami, and that it's rare for a soul to have any useable amount. To get into the Academy, you need to prove you have some, so try and do what I'm about to show you."

She held her left hand in front of her palm up. Her face pinched slightly in concentration, and a ball of orange light coalesced in her palm.

_Incredible._

Without ceasing her efforts, Yamada continued, "It feels kinda like pouring your essence into your hand. Imagine holding your soul, pouring yourself into your own hand." She extinguished the light after another moment. "It might take a while, but spend a while practicing it. This is the easiest way to prove you have reiatsu and can control it. Now try and copy me."

The three of us held our hands out as she had. I kept mine covered by my sleeve.

_I need gloves._  
Following her instructions, I pictured pulling my soul from inside and around my body, then holding it in my palm. A wavering ball of light the size of a small pumpkin swelled into existence from a tiny point.  
I describe it as white, but it was more than simple flat color. Even to my poor vision, the entire orb held a chromatic quality; it held countless ever-changing hues. My two neighbors looked surprised and slightly jealous at my success. The bow was nursing a vague greenish glow, while the woman had met with no success. To my delight, even the two Shinigami seemed taken aback at my success, unstable as it was.

Takashi cocked an eyebrow. "Impressive, to say the least."

"Yeah," agreed Yamada, "he's got potential."

My focus wavered at the compliment, and the star in my hand blinked out.

_Damn._

Clapping her hands to collect our attention, Takashi called to us,"Alright, that's enough. Work on this as much as you can later on. Just to let you know, Sereitei is around two days' worth of walking from here, so you guys have a trek to look forward to. I'd suggest you store up some lightweight bartering materials, like jewelry or Kan, or take delivery jobs between districts. Oh, and you can go for a while without food. Take advantage of that fact. Good night, and good luck." The two Shinigami abruptly concluded their presentation.

I considered that distance. The average human walked at around five kilometers an hour. Twenty hours' worth of walking was about ninety-six kilometers. My initial estimate was way off. _Sereitei must be massive._

Takashi came over and poked me. "So, what's your name, then?"

I hadn't thought about it, since she'd been in the middle delivering news relating the next three weeks of my life. Another moment's consideration offered a name that I found suitable. Tragic, yet beautiful.

"My name..."

I paused. After remaining nameless for the twenty-odd hours I had been aware, I was hesitant to finally define myself. Names, despite what some would say, matter. They identify, enumerate, promise, control, and speak of one's background without uttering a word. I steeled my resolve to an icy temperature equal to the night's in every way.

"My name is...Higekimaru."

Takashi grinned again, in a manner that was rapidly becoming obsequious. "Is that your family name or personal name?"

"Personal, obviously," I responded. "I don't have a family."

Takashi's smile faltered slightly. She fiddled with the handle of her sword before responding, "Well, you could be adopted by one. With talent like yours, you could be adopted into one of the noble clans of Sereitei, so long as you fit in with the family."

_Not likely._

Takashi bowed. "Goodnight, and safe travels. I'll be looking for you at the academy. Oh, and if you need to look me up, I'm-"

"Before you go, could I ask you a question?" I interrupted.

She brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear, wafting a cloud of cloying perfume towards me. "Of course. What is it?"

I looked back over her shoulder, to the monolith now shrouded by the night before continuing. "Exactly how big is Sereitei?"

She flashed that smile again, and answered, "Massive. It's supposed to be ten days' worth of walking in diameter, but it's more like a hundred seventy-some kilometers across."

My ears drifted back. _The sheer scale of it...my god._

"Takashi! Move it!" shouted Yamada, pulling me out of my preoccupied state.

Looking flustered, Takashi continued from where she had left off., "I'm Ninth Division, seventeenth seat." She bowed again. "Bye!"

The two Shinigami broke into a run, then seemingly vanished.

_Interesting party trick._

I frowned. During that last exchange, I'd heard Takashi's pulse increasing and she had smelled of anxiety, mixed with another scent, one I couldn't identify. _Was she...coming onto me? _I thought uncomfortably. _Just...why?_

The two others hadn't left he marketplace yet. They instead loitered, waiting for Takashi and I to finish speaking. As I turned to them, the Latina woman approached me.

Briskly, she asked, "Do you want to travel together to that Academy? Mikael and I have already decided to stay together." She nodded at the young man with the greenish reiatsu.

The decision was obvious, in that traveling with them while remaining concealed would be nearly impossible. Distantly, I noted how good the two of them smelled, and the clarity with which I could hear their heartbeats.

I inclined my head. "While it's a good idea for you to travel together, I'm not going there immediately. I intend to explore other options in the Rukongai first," I fibbed.

The woman mimicked my gesture as she accepted my answer, before she said, "All right. Fair enough, and good luck."

"Likewise. Be careful," I advised, turning to leave. I picked up speed, eager for a bit of privacy. Heading in the opposite direction of my victim from earlier, I considered my next course of action. _I'll eat half of these supplies, then try and find a place to stay. And a mirror and toilet, ideally. _

After climbing one of the ladders leading to the rooftops I had noticed earlier, I pulled off my burqa, adding underclothes to my list of priorities. The night air was rapidly becoming chilled. Unpacking two of the boxes of food yielded several pieces of fried fish and a cup or two of sticky rice, as well as two pairs of chopsticks and two small flasks of water. I sniffed the food inquisitively. The rice wasn't particularly appetizing, but the fish was heavenly. Even cold, the smells of the meat and oil brought my stomach to the point of desperation. _Another thing to get used to. Foods smell and taste differently the I expect them to. Not surprising, really. The knowledge of food I have consists of information recorded by human sensory faculties. _I meditatively took a chunk of rice, grimacing at the taste. It was chalky, yet sour, and carried a slight bitterness. It was edible; but in the same way tree bark might be for a human.

_There might be an inn or hostel nearby. From what those Shinigami told us, it wouldn't be surprising. _I gobbled the rest of my food, feeling unsatisfied by the meager fare. As I settled back into my burqa, I noticed how annoying the constant rustling of fabric was in my ear.

After searching for five minutes, I noticed a poster leading with an arrow painted on it. In large text, it read:

HOSTEL THIS WAY.

THREE NIGHT LIMIT.

NO CHARGE.

_Convenient._ I set about following the arrows, from poster to poster. Five or ten minutes of that directed wandering led me to a fairly large three-story building; the highest I had seen outside of Sereitei. The outside of it was constructed of brownish stone bricks similar to the rest of the district's architecture.

Upon entering, I immediately came to a room occupied by a man in a bed. A tripwire strung across the doorway rung a stone disk against several stone cylinders in a manner reminiscent of a wind chime. My ears twitched at the noise; it held a timbre that fell harshly across my ear.

The occupant of the bed, whom I presumed to be the host, rose. He was a fairly short man, dressed in a simple robe, with brown skin reminiscent of ocean sand. Striding forward, he bowed and said, "Good evening, madame. I take it you've seen the rules on the posters?"

I scowled slightly. My tail flicked in annoyance. I needed to find new clothing or alter what I had. _Eventually, someone's going to say something when the woman in a burqa speaks with a man's voice. _I cleared my throat. "Yes, I read them. Could I get a room, please?"

Bowing once more, my host responded, "Of course. By the way, call me Oussef. Is there anything you need to know?" We arrived at the room that was to be mine.

"Actually, yes, but it can wait until tomorrow. I need to sleep. Thank you for your hospitality. Good night. Sorry to disturb you," I answered quickly.

Oussef stopped me before I entered my room. "Would you mind telling me your name? I need it for my ledger."

_Well, it's an opportunity to break in my new identity, I suppose._ "My name," I said, stifling a yawn, "...is Higekimaru. Just Higekimaru. No family name." Our conversation concluded, and I retired to my room.

**ѠѠѠ**

It was small, and the inside walls and floor were coated with substance that reminded me of adobe or some sort of dun-colored cement. It smelled strongly, to my pallet at least, of dusty soil. In the center there was a sort of futon made of several blankets piled on top of each other, with no pillow. The room's lighting was provided by several tallow candles sitting in brackets attached to the wall on either side of the the open doorway. Their oily smell turned my stomach. The chamber was completed with a small chest on the wall to the left of the blankets and what appeared to be a latrine opposite. I regarded the latrine balefully before eventually caving and using it.

_Before I turn in, I might as well check for any leftover supplies from previous guests, _I thought to myself. The search yielded fruit in the form of a silver ring and a short note that read as follows:

_To whom it concerns,_

_ I'm leaving you this ring as a gift from one stranger to another. I have no use for it, and already have everything I want. It belonged to my husband before he passed. I'm giving it to you, so that someone might be enriched by my hand. He would have wanted me to help others. I only ask you to pay it forward. I'm an old widow, anyway. I have no use for it. I wish you fortune and prosperity in all of your endeavors._

_Sincerely, Yacha Chaim_

**ѠѠѠ**

After a moment's consideration of my worthiness, I replaced the ring and curled up on the blankets to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Welcome to the third chapter of _A Pair of Monsters._ Before you start, please read this note. To all of you who have commented or PM'd me, thank you. You all have no idea how good I feel when my story is acknowledged. Feel free to contact me at any time. If I'm free, I'll respond. Also, let me know if you've any OCs or concerns over quality of this story. Arigatou gozaimasu.**

**Also, I should probably start including disclaimers: This chapter contains nudity. Bleach and any media associated with its canon are in no way mine. All I own are my Ocs and my unhealthy predilections.**

**10/5/13: Tonight, I've been going on an editing spree before posting my latest chapter.**

**A/N: Welcome to the third chapter of _A Pair of Monsters._ Before you start, please read this note. To all of you who have commented or PM'd me, thank you. You all have no idea how good I feel when my story is acknowledged. Feel free to contact me at any time. If I'm free, I'll respond. Also, let me know if you've any OCs or concerns over quality of this story. Arigatou gozaimasu.**

**Also, I should probably start including disclaimers: This chapter contains nudity. Bleach and any media associated with its canon are in no way mine. All I own are my Ocs and my unhealthy predilections.**

**Chapter Three: Alterations**

That night, I had the first of many recurring nightmares. I jolted awake, hyperventilating and seized by an unnamable anxiety. The steadfastly regualar tempo of my pulse was a staccato pounding behind my eyes.

_Like the frenzied pounding of footsteps running in the dark from a monster._

My daytime bravado vanished when faced with opaque darkness and closed walls, which precluded any estimate of the time.

I could smell my own fear; a sharp, stomach-wrenching scent. Throwing my burqa aside, I lunged over to the latrine and vomited. Tears pricked my eyes as I braced my arms on either side of the hole in the ground.

_Oh god. I don't even know what I'm afraid of._ I took out one of my two remaining servings of water and lapped at it cautiously. _The dream...there was the field from earlier, and I was there. Or rather, two of me were there. _I shook my head miserably. "It doesn't make any sense," I complained aloud. Silence spoke back.

I recalled the subject of the nightmare in more detail. _There were two of me, but also only one, and the two were in conflict._

Exasperated, I sat with my back against the wall and let my head fall back, focusing on the grinding protest issuing from the surface to the exclusion of all else, setting analysis of my subconcious' paradoxical logic in favor of mental white noise.

**ѠѠѠ**

The succeding morning saw me awake stiff, sore, and hungry. I blinked several times to clear the sleep from my eyes, and lay still, dully staring at the ceiling. I rose with a wince and felt several joints crack as I considered my priorities.

_Time to make a list,_ I thought as I unpacked the remainder of my food. _I need to alter my clothing so it's less feminine, and more practical. I also need new food, and water. If I get everything I need, I'll start heading to Sereitei tomorrow._

_ Food._ I frowned. It seemed like the fare I had been provided with wasn't going to be adequate. If I was a carnivore, then I needed to eat more meat. The two servings of fish and what appeared to be a sort of beef stew weren't going to nourish me. I could go without food, but it seemed like I needed to eat more than others. _I know I was previously human,_ I stated to myself, _And I also know that normal humans don't feel as much hunger as I do now after eating last night. _With my back to the open doorway, I sat with my arms inside my covering, like a child hiding in his fort, eating. The food was gone all too quickly, and even with the water, I was left parched.

_Water, _I cursed to myself. The previous night's events had left me with one serving, which I had just consumed. Water, of course, is more important than food. One can die a very crampy death by dehydration in a fraction of the time it takes for the equally unpleasant effects of starvation to kick in. _Then again, it's a common resource. A nearby body of water would likely be drinkable, to some extent; there's no obvious industry or agriculture to pollute it. _

I prioritized the issue. Immediately after outfitting myself in more complete and practical vestments, a way to stay hydrated would my next quarry.

**ѠѠѠ**

Oussef greeted my as I passed through his room. It occurred to me that I had decided to ask him about finding clean clothing and food the previous night.

I tapped him on the shoulder, pulling his gaze up from the ledger on his lap. "Oussef-san'," I began politely, "could you tell me if there are any people who could alter my clothing? This was all I could find, and I'd like to replace or alter it. Also, do you know where I could find food and water?"

Oussef rubbed his upper lip for a moment, seeming to consider his response. "Tailors...one of the market's clothing merchants would likely alter clothing, but to find a proper private tailor, you're going to need to go to the richer districts. As for the other bit, see if you can find a community elder. They'll give yoou something. Otherwise, you could find a river. Or just head for Sereitei. You'll be able to make it, since starvation and dehydration both take longer than in the world of the living." He looked back down at the large leather-bound book in his lap. "Still unlpeasant, though."

I inclined my head. "Thank you. One last thing. How do I get to the nearest river from here?"

Oussef penned in another cell on the ledger. Without looking up, he distractedly replied, "Go southeast, you can't miss it. It's outside of the city."

**ѠѠѠ**

After leaving the hostel, I tossed the different plausible courses of action around. _I'd rather avoid the marketplace. That really only leaves heading up through the rest of the Rukongai or finding a river. I should find a river first, obviously. Maybe I can even hunt some wild animals. _The thought amused me in a morbid manner, because it only served as further confirmation to me that I wasn't human. I swept my eyes across the throng of people in front of me.

I choked on the current of black emotion welling up inside. A realization had just hit me with all the force of a rampaging beast. My alienation was...absolute. Indescripable. Immutable and fundamental. Every member of the throng filling the street was an individual person; identical to the next yey soemhow wholly unique. They were people, each with family biological or otherwise, each firm in the knowledge that they belonged somewhere. I wasn't any of those things.

_I'm not like them, _I realized on a primordial level.

_I'm different._

_ I'm lesser._

_ I'm a monster._

A father holding hands with his daughter passed me by. I felt them again, those feelings that had first assailed me the night I attacked the nameless old woman. The hunger and the bloodlust.

The shame was there as well, wrapping around my heart like a barbed cage, each heartbeat bringing fresh anguish.

I stood in the street, quaking, rooted to the spot. My heart raced, and my mind was consumed with the desire to hunt, and to kill. Not just others, but myself as well.

_That way, _I thought, _I won't have to live as something evil._

The heartbeats and scents of hundreds of people swept buy, carried aloft by a breeze.

A shuddering breath swept in.

Then I took off running into an alleyway, unconcerned with who saw me for what I was beneath the mask.

The worst they could do was kill me, and, at the time, I was okay with that.

**ѠѠѠ**

I headed for the river, away from people. Without a way to measure the time, all I knew for certain was that it took hours. At least two, maybe more.

I wasn't in the state of mind to keep track. I was running mindlessly for nearly an hour before finally stopping, having exhausted my inhuman endurance.

Despite all my planning, the course of action I chose wasn't one I'd even considered when I woke up less than four hours ago. I chose death. Not because it seemed better, but because staying alive as what I was was just too unthinkable.

The end of my fatal pilgrimage brought me to a convenient drop-off around twenty meters shy of the banks of the unnamed river I'd been told about. It curved gently through the densely forested landscape before arcing out of sight towards Sereitei. The sky was a clear blue, with clouds painted across it in wispy streaks left by the brush of a skilled artist.

Looking back, I can say that it was a great scene to admire, and, as last looks go, you could find no better. I toed the edge of the drop, a stone precipice heading straight down to a bed of rocky rivershore. I looked out at the landscape as a fatalistic sense of relief and peace swept through me. My mind was filled with a suffocating silence, like that of a mausoleum. The pounding in my ears could only have been my pulse. An instant before I took the step, my eyes drifted shut. As the fall began, my heart lept in my chest, as if it was voicing protest at my actions.

The next instants were an indecipherable jumble of sensations, all thrown aside by the sound of a human voice.

"Renkan Seppa Sen!"

The ground I was rushing towards changed color an instant before I hit it with a sickening thud.

**ѠѠѠ**

As I awakened, I realized I was nude. Dull, nauseating pain suffused my body, sharpening in a few places before dying down again. I heard movement, distant and unclear. As consiousness returned to me, the last moments I remembered passed behind my closed eyelids.

_ I tried to kill myself._

_ And I failed._

_ What happened, exactly?_

There was a woman sitting next to me. I could hear her heartbeat and smell the mingled scents of skin, sweat, clothing, chemicals, and excrement. My eyelids cracked open, revealing a plain tan ceiling with what appeared to be recessed lightbulbs of some kind spaced regularly throughout. Blinking, my eyes slid over to whomever my caretaker might be.

She was a...very well-endowed woman. The top of her head was wrapped in bandages which allowed tufts of short black hair to jut out at odd angles, like some sort of experiment in the geometry of the human sihlouette. Conspicously, she was missing her right arm. The most of her torso was bare, covered only by a skimpy red robe which was trimmed with white and emblazoned with a black line that led up from the bottom before curling into a spiral. Her left arm bore a tattoo; it read 'sky' in a single elegant glyph. She looked up from the book she was reading and noticed my gaze. That gaze flicked to the spine of her book, which appeared to be on feline anatomy. A dull ache struck in my chest.

The woman was adressing me. I blinked, surprised by my own lack of focus, which was likely precipitated by my pain. I tentatively opened my jaw, and heeding my sore chest, asked, "Could you repeat that?"

She smacked me, heedless of what I suspected to be cracked ribs. "You tried to kill yourself, idiot."

I let out a whimpering cry in response. It felt like my muscles were on fire.

After recovering my composure, I cried, "So why'd you hit me?! Jesus...who are you, anyway?

Her facial features softened for an instant, and I noticed the peridot gleam of her eyes. Then once more, she was all brass and attitude. "I'm Shiba Kūkkaku. That's Shiba-san to you. I hit you because you tried to kill yourself, Idiot."

_Is she being facetious?_

I hoped that wasn't going to become my nickname. My pride wouldn't be able to stand it. "Then thank you...Shiba-san. I'm Higekimaru. What exactly happened.? I was about to die, I know it. How'd you save me?" She looked back to her text and frowned.

"I didn't. My brother Ganju was out with his gang when he saw you take a header off a cliff. I use the term 'gang' in its loosest interpretation. So, he saved you, and took you to my house. I healed the worst of your injuries. Are you hungry?"

_That really doesn't answer my question, _I griped to myself. Putting the matter aside, I took another shallow breath. "Alright, what about the elephant in the room? I noticed your choice of medical texts. Yet you don't even seem surprised. Or alarmed. And could I have some clothing? And a mirror?"

Shiba seemed to pick up on my frustration as she grinned and replied, "Yeah, well you remind me of a friend of mine, so I thought I'd treat your injuries. Also, I think the panther in the room is a bigger deal than the elephant."

I stared at her, dumbstruck by her nonchalance. "A friend?"

"Here's a kimono."

**ѠѠѠ**

After helping me dress, Shiba asked me, "Can you eat?"

I nodded.

In response, Shiba called out, "Koganehiko! Shiroganehiko! Bring out the food!" A door at the far end of the room slid open, revealing two men, apparently twin servants, each laden with the accoutrements needed to serve a large meal.

As they set down a short table on the floor and laid out a selection of bowls and pots and several pairs of chopsticks, I was plagued with unease. Being without a mask felt wrong. An ironic emotion to feel, because I'd only been covering my face for a day or two, and I had never enjoyed it. Also, there was the matter of how I hadn't scented or heard the twins, or the food they carried. _Eerie. _And they didn't even bat a squinty eye at my appearance.

As Shiba and I were served, I scrutinized the two retainers further. Which one was which wasn't immediately apparent, but I did notice subtle differences. While they both wore red caps and bluish or greyish scarves, one's shirt was yellow where the other's was white. Their faces were nearly identical; the only differentiating characteristics were the width and presence of a cleft chin. The twin servants served us silently and efficiently, before settling in on either side of the table to presumably continue serving Shiba and I.

While taking a place opposite Shiba, I noticed that my only real injuries were some painful ribs and an injured ankle. I scrutinized the menu. Water, some sort of alcohol, rice, and what appeared to be a pot of beef slices simmering in a sauce above a brazier. Following Shiba's lead, I held out my bowl to have an egg cracked into it by the thinner-faced twin manservant. We then began to eat, dipping the fried beef into the egg before consuming it. As I chewed,I struggled to maintain proper decorum. Shiba and I were both sitting casually, but nevertheless, it seemed that it would be innapropriate to chew it in the manner I found most comfortable, which involved a lot of gnashing and smacking.

My host seemed to notice my stiff and slightly uncomfortable movents. She snorted in an incredibly unladylike fashion before poking my chest with her chopsticks, swallowing loudly, and saying, "Oi, idiot. That can't be comfortable. Eat however you damn well please. Not like I'm going to be offended."

I blinked, surprised. "Oh...thank you." We ate in silence for the next few minutes, until Shiba spoke once more.

"Alright so...why'd you do it? Try to off yourself, I mean."

_At least she's tactful._

_ "_I...don't know. I sort of..." I paused, trying and failing to find the words to describe the way I'd been feeling.

_ There's no way in hell I'm going to tell her I want to kill people._ Even then, just at the thought, I became cognizant of the urge still irritating me faintly, like an omnipresent flame in my stomach, threatening to spill out and destroy anything I touched.

"It was like watching someone else in my body. I regret it happening. I don't know why I'm...like this." I passed my hand around my face."So I lost it." I reached for my glass of water, suddenly aware of how strong the flavors of the sukiyaki were to me.

"Think you'll do it again?" Shiba asked me as she ate another piece of beef.

_Maybe. Probably._

I shook my head. "No, no, I don't want to die. That won't happen again."

Shiba, having eaten her fill, placed her chopsticks back in their holder and planted her singular elbow on the table and her chin on her knuckles. I eyed her robe's precarious grip on her cleavage with mingled discomfort and curiosity as to how it remained closed. My ruminations were interrupted with a question. "So, if you're not gonna do..._that_ again anytime soon, what are you going to do?"

I placed my own hachi back in their holder and finished my water. Shiroganehiko and Koganehiko began cleaning up. "I'd intended to head to the Shinōreijutsuin and become a Shinigami."

Shiba looked at me over the pipe she had just produced out of a pocket. She tamped the tobacco down with her thumb, before igniting it with a shower of sparks from the tip of her finger.

She seemed to ignore my surprised reaction as she mulled over my words. "Were you picked up by recruiters?"

I nodded.

"They show you kidō?"

"Yes."

She gnawed the tip of her pipe contemplatively. "They just started doing that a little while ago...Hey, let's make a deal. As things are, you owe me for my hospitality. So, you stay here for a year or two, and be my retainer. In exchange, I'll teach you some kidō, which'll put you head and shoulders above the other students there, even the nobles. What do you say?"

It was a tempting offer. The ability to learn kidō before any of my peers was enticing, to be sure, and I wanted to repay my debts. Also, this would be an opportunity to get new clothing, which I desperately needed.

I cleared my throat. "Shiba-san, before I decide, I have a question. My injuries should be far more serious than these. How did you heal them?"

Shiba blew a smoke ring to the ceiling and lazily replied, "I used kidō."

"I see. You've got a deal."

**ѠѠѠ**

That night, I returned to the same room I had been kept in before. Shiba's house was largely underground, with only her bedroom, a dining room, and a guest room she had allocated to me aboveground.

As I returned to my room and laid own on my futon, I thought. About the future, the past I didn't seem to have, the lie I'd told Shiba at dinner. I didn't know if I would live out the year. The thing that springs eternal in the human breast is supposed to be hope. That which springs eternal in mine is hunger.

If that meant I would become a monster, then for the good of others and myself, I'd choose suicide. I laid down on my futon, forgoing covers in favor of lying in the open air. _Maybe there's a way to resolve this feeling. _

_ Or become human._

The night didn't offer sleep easily. That night in particular, I wasn't released to sleep for several hours. Hours that saw me up and about and examining my reflection in the light shed by both the moon and a portable lantern that somehow shed light from a flameless sphere. I had asked how it worked, only to watch Shiba dodge the question. In the ghostly white light shed by the luminescent spheres, I examined my face.

My visage was unmistakably that of a panther. There were few, if any human characteristics to it. Whiskers sprouted from either side of a liabove an animalistic jaw filled with a number of small teeth and a set of surprisingly thick canines. A blunt black nose led up to an undelineated brow, from beneath which two flat golden-green eyes blazed with an unsettling light in them. My pupils were elliptical, removing any possibility of anyone mistaking them for human. The top of my head was furnished with two slightly blunt ears as black as the rest of me.

Turning in the light issuing from a window, I disrobed and examined my body. Human musculature sloped down a muscular yet thin and lithe back, with barely visible yet abdominal muscles made more appealing by the moon's grey glow. A tail carried down from the base of my spine, swishing through the air elegantly until termination with a rounded tip. My privates were no more human than my eyes; my member hid itself in a furred sheath, above a small scrotum furred like the rest of me.

I couldn't help but smirk to myself. _I may be a monster,_ I mused ironically, _but at least I'm hot. _My ears swiveled atop my head and my tail cut a line through the air.

Acting on a sudden impulse, I tried performing a few basic stretches, to discover that I was much more flexible than most humans. However, there was something important missing: a sex drive. I didn't feel arousal at that moment, nor had I since my rebirth.

I flexed my body for another twenty minutes, touching my forhead to my ankles at the exercise's climax. Refreshed and calmer, I returned to my futon.

The last thought on my mind that night was fear that my suicide would one day become necessary.

**ѠѠѠ**

The following day, my employment, and my tutelage, under Shiba began. She woke me early, slightly after dawn, and sat me down at breakfast to discuss my duties and questions. "First off," she said, "I need to fill you in on my family. There's me, my brother Ganju, Shiroganehiko and Koganehiko, and random clansmen scattered all around."  
"Clansmen?" I echoed, tail sweeping around my right thigh.

She nodded. "The Shiba used to be a noble clan, but no longer."

"Could I ask why?"

She scowled, and swallowed. "When my oniisan died, we were expelled from the noble class."

_Okay. Still doesn't answer my question. What an...irritating habit, _I thought to myself. Changing the subject, I took a bite of my fish and asked, "So, what am I expected to do for you?"

Shiba took the change in stride, but seemed relieved nonetheless. "Housekeeping, basically. Purchasing food, constructing fireworks for the clan to sell, cleaning, and taking care of day-to-day chores. Before I took you on, I had a few guys from the Rukongai, but I'm done training them. They moved out a while back."

I filed the information away. "Were they like me?"

She raised an eyebrow innocently. "What, did they have high reiatsu and reiryoku? Yep."

Fed up with Shiba's frequent evasions, I placed my palms down in the table, all social graces forgotten. "Look bitch, I'm not joking." I leaned forward, cutting the distance between us with each word. "Were. They. Like. Me?" By the conclusion of my question, our faces were centimeters apart, and my teeth were bared. A growl rumbled in my throat. I'm sure I cut quite a terrible figure; the twins seemed to think so, since they were on their feet and drawing blades in an instant. Shiba calmly drained her bowl of tea before firmly setting it down, looking me in the eye, and proving that she had an impressive right jab, even from a sitting position.

Growling, I clamped a hand over my bloodied nose before looking up only to see Shiba looming over me, green eyes gleaming dangerously.

_How did she get there so quickly?_

She seized the front of my kimono and pulled me up to her face one-handedly. I felt a stifling sensation surrounding me, as if the atmosphere had suddenly began to thicken to the consistency of wet . The porcelain rattled on the table. A steady current of force pressed against me. Shiba's lip curled, and I suddenly realized how imposing she really was. "Look, punk, this is my house," she growled harshly, tightening her grip for emphasis. "And you-" Shake. "W_ill_-" Shake."Act like it. Understood?"

I nodded mutely, ashamed of my fear.

"Good." With that, she spun a full circle once, with me in her solitary hand, before hurling me several meters to skid across the floor, aggravating my injuries. I whimpered with the impact before rising and bowing my head.

"Forgive me," I whimpered. Shiba had once again moved faster than expected, having already returned to her seated position. She snorted, and my frustrated and impotent pride growled darkly in my gut.

"Yeah, yeah. Tsukishima and Ginjō needed put in their place too. Go get dressed. Koganehiko laid out clothes for you."

I bowed again, flustered and humiliated, before following her command.

**ѠѠѠ**

Whichever twin Koganehiko was, his taste was impeccable. He had selected a cream-colored kimono with a sparrow pattern on it, a dark brown kosode, and white hakama, with a brown obi. After dressing myself the way Shiba had taught me, I returned to the room we had been dining in. The table had been cleared away, and my hostess sat on her cushion smoking her damnable pipe. Upon seeing me, she tilted her head back and blew smoke out of her nose like one of the benevolent dragons of Eastern folklore.

Any resemblance to the gracious serpents was dispelled when she gazed upon me cooly and questioned, "You gonna be good now?"

Pride wrenched in my stomach as I bowed my head in aquiesence. "Yes, Shiba-san."

She smiled then, my trespass seemingly forgotten. "Then let's get to business. I planned to tell you about the purpose of the Shiba clan during breakfast, but I didn't get the chance. We, and by we I mean Shiroganehiko, Koganehiko, Ganju, and I, make fireworks, which we sell to the Gotei Thirteen. Clear?"

I agreed once more, this time with more enthusiasm. "Absolutely. I assume it's my job to help make them?"

"Right," responded Shiba. She led me to a door leading outside before continuing, "And we make them outside, typically." She opened the sliding door after putting on her geta. I donned my simple waraji, also a gift from the Shiba clan, before following her.

_This is the first time I've been outside since...then, _I thought, my curiosity immediately spoiled by the emotional lurch. I didn't know what to expect, but I wasn't dissapointed. On two of the deceptively small house's opposite ends, there was a massive sculpture; one was a tree bearing fruit, the other was a magnificently proportioned statue of a boy reaching for it. On the fruit, script reading "Shiba Kūkkaku" was engraved deeply into the fruit's red surface. A few dozen meters from the house, what appeared to be a smooth shimney of some kind protruded from the ground. As we continued away from the house, I slowly turned to keep the oddity in sight, until I was walking backwards, struck speechless. As I recovered my faculties, I murmered, "Shiba-san...what is this? And how did you do this?" Shiba flicked her wrist nonchalantly, and without turning around, replied, "With kidō. Don't stop" she admonished, "the shed's a little further out. This way, it won't hurt the house if it explodes." Nonchalantly, she added, "That's how I lost righty."

I jogged to return to her side, still awestruck by the sheer scale of the ludricious architecture.

Suddenly, psychosis seemed a more plausible and noteworthy possible explanation for my state of being.

**ѠѠѠ**

We worked at making fireworks for six hours or so before breaking for lunch. It was interesting work, but I found myself despising it nevertheless. Despite the leather gloves and moist face cloth given to me for protection from the chemicals, they still found their way in. Miniscule bits of aluminum and copper left tiny lacerations on my wrists. Calcium, sodium, and nitrate compounds irritated my highly sensitive olfactory glands. By the end of the shift, my throat was swollen, my eyes teary, and my head achy.

And Shiba still hadn't answered many of my questions. After three hours of me frequently asking questions, and three hours of Shiba half-answering, dodging or disregarding them, I adopted a sort of zen, 'let-the-mountain-come-to-Mohammed' philosophy.

As Shiba and I took our lunch, one of my questions slipped through my veneer of saintlike patience. "Shiba-san, when will I start learning kidō? I hate to sound overeager, but I'm curious." She tilted her head back and slurped the last of her broth before deigning to reply. "That depends on you."

_We've gone from no answers to opaque shifts of responsibility. Delightful._ I scowled quietly. "Seriously."

Shiba's eyes rolled in her head as she spoke around her pipe. "Seriously. That stunt you pulled at breakfast makes me a little leery about it. But probably by the end of the week. You've got to learn theory first."

That response spawned a new question, one that I should've already asked. "Shiba-san, what date is it?" I asked as I placed my chopsticks back in their holder.

"Twenty-first of November," was her terse reply as she stood to go back outside, sliding on her geta.

I followed suit. "Of what year?"

She rubbed the bowl of her pipe clean distractedly as she responded, "Twenty thirty-five, give or take. What's with all the questions?" Her voice became louder and irritated as she finished her sentence.

_What's with the lack thereof on your part? _I held my tongue, fearful of provoking Shiba's wrath. "What do you mean, what's with all the questions? I asked what the date was. Don't have kittens."

Shiba's eyebrows furrowed, and her eyes flashed as she opened her mouth to snap back, before pausing and starting to giggle in an uncharacteristically childish manner. I new where she was going with this.

_ Talk about a poor choice of words._

Shiba chuckled a bit more. "Ahaha..._kittens_...and you're a cat...oh, that's funny. Whatever. Anyway, I have books for you to study before I start training you. Here." Shiba took a worn leather-bound book from one of the twins and placed it in my hands. "Learn everything from the first three chapters. Then we'll work on actually using the suff you're gonna learn. Now get ready to go to the market with Shiroganehiko and Koganehiko."

I stood. "In this? I'd rather wear a mask and cover my body, if you don't mind."

In the strangely dismissive way with which she seemed to approach most affairs, Shiba quirked an eyebrow. "Oh? What are you ashamed?"

_Yes._

"No, I just-"

"Yeah, fine, ask Koganehiko. He'll put something together for you."  
I bowed slightly, and, embarassed, responded, "Thank you, but which man is Koganehiko?"

Shiba answered without looking at me. "The one in white." I turned to him, only to be met by an expression as expressive as the average brick wall.

_Looks like he's still pissed about breakfast._

Koganehiko bowed at Shiba's dismissal, and summoned me to follow with a "This way, Higekimaru-san."

I followed him mutely to a storage room filled with boxes. My nose curled at the scent of dust, which suggested images of age and decay. Koganehiko began unpacking boxes, searching for the necessary components to build a disguise for me.

**ѠѠѠ**

Twenty minutes of searching and another twenty of fitting produced a new outfit for me: the kosode was replaced with a white hood that fell to my chest that I donned beneath my kimono. A white and mostly featureless bamboo mask bearing the crest of the Shiba clan underneath its right eye covered my face, while leather gloves and boots covered my hands and feet. My tail was concealed within my kimono. It worked well to conceal my body from the eyes of others.

It was also fucking sweaty.

I settled the mask into place and pulled the hood up as we left the household, entering the afternoon sun.

_Right then. Time to go to market, _I thought anxiously. My biggest concern was that I would lose control of myself once more.

_ What's going to happen, _I wondered,_ when I actually hurt someone?_


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Warning: Lengthy author's note ahead. Hey, fellow weird people. Sorry to keep you all waiting; I promise I've been working hard. This is the latest chapter, and in my opinion, the best to date. However, it wasn't easy to write: I have my beta reader WeepingCadaver to thank for its quality (I mean that in the best possible way). Also, while writing this, it occurred to me that I should warn all of you about this story. It will get dark in some spots. There will be character death, and violence, and sometimes, bad things will happen to people that don't deserve it. Kinda like life. Additionally, to the delightful human beings who submitted an OC to me: If you're attached to the prospect of your character being a chipper, kindhearted person, then I'd politely suggest you PM me to withdraw permission for me to use them. There will be very few chipper, happy characters in this story. As such, I reserve the privilege to take minor creative liberties with your characters. **

**On a happier note, the abomination I have dubbed the Academy Arc will begin in three to four chapters. During that time, our favorite captain will be introduced, and I'll make guesses about plausible changes the Gotei Thirteen bigwigs may have undergone as a result of the Thousand Year Blood War. If you aren't familiar with the major plot events of that arc, particularly the injuries suffered by the Gotei, I strongly suggest you head on over to your manga-hosting site of choice and play catchup. I think that covers everything.**

**No, wait: I own nothing associated with official Bleach canon. I do, however, sell angst by the bushel. Disclaimer: This chapter contains violence. If you're particularly squeamish about blood, read cautiously. Also, this chapter contains self-harm. I hope that doesn't trigger anything for anybody. As I said: read cautiously. **

**Review or PM me if you've anything at all to say, even if it's one of the insults I richly deserve.**

**Chapter Four: Getting Fresh Food**

Before departing for what was to be a two-day expedition, The twins and I took a mule named Gankomomo from an outbuilding of Shiba's, in addition to several blankets, hemp sacks, and earthen jugs of water for the each of us. As an afterthought, I took the book Shiba had given me to read, anticipating a late night. Shiroganehiko led us on Gankomomo's back, while Koganehiko and I followed on foot to what I had begun to think of as the interior of the Rukongai; that is, Sereitei and the upper districts. The silence isolating me from the twins became increasingly fraught with tension, the air stilling and growing denser until it had the consistency of tar. I eventually broke the tension that seemed to have fallen over our group by asking, "Shiroganehiko-san, where is the market that we're going to?"

Shiroganehiko fielded the question coolly and clinically. "We are going to the fifteenth district, which is several hours of walking from here. We are to buy provisions with this." He held up a roll of multicolored bills. "Of our total funds, Shiba-sama has set aside a small amount, twenty kan, for your personal use."

I couldn't help but be pleased at that. Not only was I being compensated for my servitude in knowledge and skills for the future, I was also getting an actual payment in the form of money, however nominal an amount.

"I'll have to thank Shiba-san." I extended a gloved hand to accept the proffered bills, but grasped empty air instead. Shiroganehiko had bent his wrist back sharply at the last moment.

"However, Higekimaru-san," Shiroganehiko continued, guiding Gankomomo around a tree efffortlessly, "there remains an unresolved issue between you and us." Koganehiko moved forward to walk at my side.

"Our purpose, Higekimaru-san, is to protect Shiba-sama at all costs...not that Shiba-sama is incapable, of course." Koganehiko moved closer to me, and continued, "You, Higekmaru-san, threatened Shiba-sama with your behavior once already. Were it not for Shiba-sama's hospitality, you would no longer be enjoying the privileges she has afforded you. If you appear to pose a threat to her, we _will _act to stop your behavior, regardless of how it must be done. Do you understand?"

I couldn't help but feel exasperated in response to the pair's concerns. _That was just one time, Jesus Christ. And it's not like I'm going to risk being kicked out. Though, I suppose my appearance warrants concern._

My largely immobile feline face betrayed none of my thoughts. I responded with a perfectly modulated "I understand completely. It won't happen again."

_Probably._

Shiroganehiko handed me my roll of bills, and we continued our journey.

**ѠѠѠ**

Since the twin servants weren't the best conversationalists, I soon found myself lost in the sensory experiences offered by the acuity of perception I'd come to value. The air was fresh (if chilly), and wild; devoid of any smell that shouldn't have been present. I removed my bamboo mask to enjoy the notes that rode the breeze in an olfactory symphony that ranged from bitter and subtle to as cloyingly overwhelming as these metaphors. Leaves from trees of all different species, each with a subtle and nuanced chemical identity of its own. The scent of soil, teeming with life. Wildflowers spreading their dying petals and overpowering perfume in a gesture intended to entice the season's last insects into pollinating them, like painted women long past their prime accosting young strangers on shadowed street corners.

The evidence of animal activity, both aural and otherwise, was present, a palpable hand pulling the monstrosity of my own omnipresent hunger into the foreground of my thoughts. I replaced my mask after threading a hand inside my kimono and pressing the tips pf my claws into my flesh, hoping the pinch of of pain would chastise my demons into submission. It worked, to an extent; the razor blade of feral energy scraping over my nerves immediately subsided into a cloudy sensation of pain, though, recalcitrant, it refused to be placated completely.

**ѠѠѠ**

As we continued on, the trail we were following gradually developed into a sort of cattle trail created by the bipedal type frequently using it as a route up through the Rukongai. It curved along a river, the one I had intended to die by. There were other people on the road, and, as the air grew chill in anticipation of nightfall, the sparse numbers of fellow travelers turned into a hoard. People of all races and ages, some riding animals, were all moving in the same direction, presumably towards the market or Sereitei.

The sheer volume of the conversations held by the mass of humanity' constituents was deafening, and the stench even more intense. Sweat, dirt, blood, body odor, the smells of various animals and god only knows what else assailed me as I walked behind the twins, who were calmly discussing locations to get eggs. Brought about by the overwhelmingly abundant number of stimuli present, a headache began to build.

_This place reeks of...everything, basically. _

We arrived at the mouth of the city of lean-tos, shanties, huts, and stalls that comprised the market. The goods for sale were sorted into rough categories, but defied any attempt to sort by culture. Japanese festival masks, European-style loaves of bread,and Brahmin cattle were all being sold within the space of ten kilometers.

The density of the stalls and the number of people present (it couldn't have been less than ten thousand all throughout the shantytown) reminded me of South American favelas, or the super-apartment complexes that had sprung up in the recent years. The twins pulled me to the side of the road to speak above the roar of umpteen-thousand conversations surrounding us.

"Higekimaru-san," Shiroganehiko boomed, "stay close to us, and follow my lead."

Ears ringing, I mutely nodded.

**ѠѠѠ**

We entered the marketplace, leading the mule behind us, and headed for the part of it that sold produce first. At one of the twins' instruction, I took a burlap bag he handed me and began filling it with potatoes. After putting fifteen or twenty tubers into the sac, I handed it off to Shiroganehiko, who traded me another sack and briskly commanded, "Apples. Make sure they aren't bruised." I followed his order in the dwindling light offered by the setting sun.

By mutual necessity, the keepers running each stall (there were usually several to a stall, to safeguard against thieves) began putting up torches and lanterns, and lighting bonfires in open areas of the shantytown. The ruddy light brought out the flesh tones present in the skin of many of the customers and accentuated my omnipresent hunger once more, which was growing to a terrifying intensity; a vibrating energy pervading my body, coiling in my stomach and living in my bones.

_I need to resolve this soon, _I thought as I returned the bag to the twins while fighting to retain mastery over myself. One of the two called me to follow them. I stumbled after them mutely, preoccupied with bringing another pair of twins to heel.

**ѠѠѠ**

Koganehiko broke away from us to visit a small stall that sold confections of some kind, leaving Shiroganehiko and I at a stall selling various types of rice flour noodles. I backed away from the merchants' stall into a corner of the market's streets, unnoticed. I was struck by a need for space, of which there was a miniscule amount offered for anyone's personal use. I recalled in a moment of clarity the efficacy of my earlier remedy, and pulled off my right glove, hoping it would retain its effectiveness.

I tucked my hand into the chest area of my kimono and sunk my claws into the flesh of a pectoral muscle. The smell of my own blood calmed me, a hematic lullaby played on the muscle fibers of my chest. The pain of my flesh slowly mutilated served as a lifeline; I dug in deeper, and twisted, feeling a thrill run through my being as I regained mastery over my faculties and the hunger retreated to the background once more. I groaned quietly in relief. Through the steadily thickening stream of people separating us, I saw Shiroganehiko concluding his transaction. He stepped away from the stall, mule in tow, and sought out my mask in the crowd. He apparently caught sight of me, for his pace quickened, and his frown grew more ominous.

Without breaking stride, he took the elbow of my ungloved hand and pulled my hand away from my chest and me along with him. "Don't wander off like that," the servant tersely admonished over the cacophony of his fellows. After finding Koganehiko, who was balancing several bags of various types of confections and breads in his arms, we paused by the edge of the marketplace. Koganehiko turned and said, "Onii-san, I'm running out of space. Help me load up Gankomomo." I surreptitiously put my glove on my bloody fingers.

Nodding, Shiroganehiko turned to me. As he was opening his mouth to speak, a concerned expression crossed his face. His gaze focused in on my chest.

_Fuck._

"Higekimaru-san, what happened to your kimono?" he asked me, seeming to recognize the blood that had soaked through for what it was. I quickly improvised a lie.

"A man with an armload of tools bumped into me. A few of them left scratches," I answered, leaning forward to be heard over the crowd.

It was a decent enough deception; I had seen tools being carried by the people swarming throughout the market. The only flaw was the fact that I was bleeding far too much to only have a scratch or two. My ichor, colored black by the market's dim and ruddy lighting, had soaked through my clothing, leaving a blotch the size of a child's hand spread out across my upper left chest.

The twin hesitated for a brief instant in his response before advising, "Be careful, Higekimaru-san. It's easy to injure oneself here."

I knew his hesitation for what it was.

_He didn't believe a word of that._

I flexed my still-wet hand inside my glove.

Regardless, Shiroganehiko continued on the earlier topic and said, "Higekimaru-san, my brother and I are going to load Gankomomo with our food. Lead him to the edge of the market over there and wait for us to return. Don't go anywhere, understood?"

I nodded in affirmation. The two servants loaded the mule—_Gankomomo_, I corrected myself—with their cloth bags, using a ball of string one of them had produced from his seemingly bottomless pockets. While I watched and simultaneously kept myself under ironclad control while applying pressure to my chest wound, the misery of my position sunk in.

_So now, _I thought, _I have to stand in one place, next to a large and extremely edible animal, without hurting anyone or anything. _The sensation of metaphysical hunger was returning slowly, an elastic band inside me being pulled taut as I waited for the twins to finish their labors.

After they had left to purchase the meats, beverages, and nonconsumable items Shiba had commanded them to get, I was left alone. I guided Gankomomo to the very edge of the market, on the outskirts of the forest, where few people were. He smelled strongly of dirt, grains, sweat, and excrement. The scent of something I instinctually knew I could have been eating devoured my nerves, frayed already by my own hypersensitivity and lack of sleep. I began sorting through the groceries we had bought thus far, listing them to myself in an attempt to busy my mind.

_Pickled carrots, pickled beets, bread, three types of noodles, apples, radishes, rice, cakes and candies, potatoes, flours, spices, and chunks of rock sugar, _I recounted to myself after only one pass through the list. _Something new I now know about myself: I'm good at remembering things. Hooray._

That distraction's value being spent, I took my right hand out of its glove in Gankomomo's shadow. Idly, I crouched, behing him, back to the market, while retaining my grip on the reins. I removed my mask, trusting the increasingly poor lighting to hide my visage. I began tongue-bathing my fingers. I did my utmost to ignore how ridiculous my behavior was, as well as the degree to which I was enjoying it. My blood tasted good, almost sweet in a way I hadn't experienced until then. The strokes of my tongue became longer, trailing over my entire wrist and hand before terminating, only to be repeated once more. The more I bathed my hand the more I enjoyed it, in an oddly subversive manner. I became so engrossed, I didn't even notice the return of the twins until, with an awkward cough, Koganehiko said, "Higekimaru-san?"

I froze, tongue splayed out across the back of my hand, eyes comically wide, and rose, swiftly replacing my masks and my glove. "Do we have everything?"

The duo stared at me, brows identically furrowed. Silence held the floor of our discussion for another twenty seconds.

"What were you just doing, Higekimaru-san?"

I dismissed the matter with a shrug. "Nothing important. Again, are we good to go?"

The twins glanced at each other for an instant before apparently agreeing through telepathy to give up on the issue.

Koganehiko indicated the affirmative, and said "...Yes, we have all that we need for now, but we're going to get the livestock tomorrow, after camping out overnight. I bought salmon for dinner."

"Great. Where should we sleep?"

Still not appearing to accept my behavior as normal, Koganehiko pointed past me, into the forest. "There's a clearing we like to frequent in that direction."

**ѠѠѠ**

After setting down in the clearing, I sorted through our supplies while Koganehiko built a fire and Shiroganehiko stripped the bark off of a stick to roast the fish on.

_Salmon, salmon roe, haddock, and carp. That's a lot of fish, _I thought to myself. _We're probably going to buy the chickens and pigs alive, maybe a steer as well. _The selection of quality sake from the upper districts' tea houses and bars Shiba had requested sat to the side, away from the rest of the food; one whiff of the surprisingly potent brew was enough to burn my sinuses and bring tears to my eyes. Having completed my investigation into the fruits of the day's labors, I rejoined Koganehiko, who had constructed a sort of bowl out of twigs and dry grass in my absence.

Koganehiko used kidō to ignite a small grey flame on the end of his finger, which he dropped into his nest, setting it ablaze. As he cast the kidō, I felt a strange sort of pressure or vibration roll off of him. Looking back, I can say that that was the second time I felt another's reiatsu, with the first being when Shiba scolded me for my behavior.

After Shiroganehiko finished his task of creating the spit that was to be used to cook our food, I fetched the filets out of the pile of food and handed two of them to the twins. I shrugged at Koganehiko's questioning look, and answered the silent question. "I'd prefer to eat mine raw."  
I retreated into the darkness away from the fire to take my repast in peace, without my mask or gloves. The filet had been wrapped in some sort of herbal mixture to preserve it. I unwrapped it and sniffed suspiciously at the limp leaves before tossing them aside. Eager to satiate my hunger, I sank my teeth into the fish and grunted slightly at the intensity of the flavors. Though spoiled slightly by the bitterness of whatever herb had originally been wrapped around it, the meat itself was by far the most delicious food I had eaten since waking up days ago in that field. It was complex, savory, salty, and even a little sweet.

_It's fresh._

I tore another chunk out of the cool flesh, feeling surprisingly alive. All too soon, it was gone. I was left smiling (or rather what passed for smiling when one lacked simian lips), but with my wretched, tenacious hunger only partially satisfied.

**ѠѠѠ**

That night, was, at first, entirely typical, in that I didn't sleep well. I laid awake, away from the heat of the smoldering fire. The twins had slept next to it, and entreated me to join them for my own well-being, but I declined; it was inviting trouble to do so, but I felt the risks of sleeping next to two people when I had only a tenuous grasp on my emotions outweighed the physical benefits. I shifted against the tree I was lying against, and considered my dismal mental and emotional health.

_After today, I don't know if I can keep this up._

I deliberately steered myself away from one particular chain of thought, but I still realized the truth it held. Regardless of how stubbornly I avoided acknowledging it, I had enjoyed my self-inflicted pain.

The scab on my chest itched. I rubbed the fur underneath it in a vain attempt to remove the blood encrusting it. Finally, with a sigh that fogged the air around my mouth and nose, I stood and cast aside my blanket.

_Perhaps a walk will help me get away from myself for a while. _I removed my hood, gloves, mask, and boots before leaving our camp. It may have been freezing cold out, but it was also dry, and the blade of chill air sharpened to a razor point left me breathless, and feeling almost at peace.

The moon shed more than enough silvery light to see by, and the number of stars in the sky was seemingly endless. Without any light pollution from the towering supercities that had spread across the earth, nebulae, stars, and what may have even been far-flung distant galaxies shone with an icy power unmatched by the most intense of earthly images. As I looked upon the abyss above me, my arms drifted up from my sides of their own accord and I shed my kimono, leaving myself clad only in hakama. That I removed as well, seized by the impulse to liberate myself from all of my constraints. There, I stood underneath the stars for an indeterminate amount of time with only myself, my hunger, and the forest for company. A gust of wind whispered past me, and I shivered slightly at its icy touch. Spurred by my discomfort, and by the loneliness inspired in me by the dispassionate eyes of the night sky, I began to move, curving continually away from any smells or sounds warning of human occupation.

At first, it was just a brisk walk, intended to occupy me and ward off the night chill that signified the beginning of winter. Then the time between my footsteps gradually lengthened, and the wind began running past me with greater speed,and I was suddenly running as fast as I could, with no recollection of where I had made the transition.

As I ran, and as the forest forest started to talk to me through the countless notes of scent that composed it, I began to feel a sense of freedom completely foreign to me; and deep inside me, I realized the _rightness _of that freedom, that movement, that flight.

Another inhalation later, I smelled something, something distantly reminiscent of Gankomomo. Twigs, leaves, and stones tore into my soles as I skidded to a stop, unsure of its identity. Another instant later, I realized it by way of the same innate informative mechanism that had told me that it was good to run.

I identified the smell as food. My hunger raised its fanged head in response, and I let it run free. More than anything, I wanted to finally be satiated. The rest came naturally to me, though my actions were supplemented by an entirely human logic.

_It's upwind of me, and somehow hasn't heard me._

My heart hammered its riotous approval of my intentions against the inside of my ribs, and the wound on my chest throbbed with a titillating pain in response. Silently, I began scaled a large deciduous tree to my right, hoping that a position amongst its gleaming leaves would show me the position of my quarry. I pulled myself onto a branch around five meters from the ground and shimmied carefully to the end of it. The wind gusted again, setting me awash in food-scent and parting a curtain of leaves for an instant to reveal a stag.

My prey was magnificent. The whitish highlights on its pelt gleamed in the moonlight, and a rack of antlers, damaged from a bout earlier in life, caught the night's shining atmosphere and seemed to play with it, catching and holding onto the light like a child onto its parent's hand.. It snorted slightly, and looked around, evidently aware of the presence of one other than itself. It began moving towards my limb. In seconds it would pass underneath me, and that was when I would strike down at it. A creaking noise sounded from my distant left, and the wind shifted to blow from the same direction.

A whispered curse sounded from a man's lips as the stag looked in his direction for an instant before turning and sprinting in my direction, towards the deer trail that had taken me here. The hunter loosed an arrow just as the stag began to move. His arrow hit the beast with a _thwack_ and a whimper from the hunted, but the shot went foul, striking the stag in his spine. He fell to the ground, hind limbs useless, and struggled pathetically to run for safety. I waited an instant longer. Then the hunter emerged.

He was a stocky man, with more than his fair share of muscle, and a wild mane of hair showing him to be a dedicated outdoorsman. The hunter drew back his bowstring, and prepared to put the beast out of his misery.

I took this chance to intervene.

A scant two meters from him, I dropped easily into the leaf litter covering the forest floor and backstepped to hover over the dying animal. A growl escaped my throat entirely independent of my own will, and the man froze. I could smell his fear. His heartbeat was audible to me, and it was a delicious experience.

Slowly, so slowly, the hunter backed away from me, doing well at managing a considerable amount of terror and shock. He raised his bow.

I blinked in realization and rolled to the right just before he fired. The arrow struck the stag's corpse, a morbid companion to the first, and I peered around the trunk of the tree I had been hiding in earlier, only to see the man fleeing for all he was worth. I wanted to chase him down, but my practical, intellectual, human side denied the thought as soon as it was born.

The stag's rapidly cooling flesh lay where it had expired. I placed a hand on its shoulder tentatively; suddenly half-afraid of what I was about to do. Then I took my first bite out of the meat, and forgot all of my fears in a rush of glorious, primal satisfaction. It was still warm, and filled with blood that had been rushing through vital muscles only hours earlier. I tore at the corpse, savoring every mouthwatering scrap of flesh and drop of blood.

That night was the first time in memory I had slept soundly.

**ѠѠѠ**

The next morning, I awoke disoriented, groggy, and feeling like a new man, or perhaps a new beast. I realized my situation and all that it entailed in the next several seconds.

I silently uttered the word that was becoming an unfortunate sort of private catchphrase.

Then, before panicking, I allowed myself a split second of sardonic bliss.

_I wonder if anyone's ever had to do the walk of shame after going for a walk at two in the morning, stealing a hunter's kill, and feasting on its still warm corpse._

The remains of my meal lay not far from me. I licked the side of my face as I regarded it, and my situation.

_It's late, at least nine or ten, _I thought. _I'm filthy, and the twins probably are wondering where I am, if they haven't already left. _The thought concerned me.I stood to head back to where we had bedded down he night previous, and as I did so, it occurred to me that despite the facts that I was cold, and probably in deep shit, and possibly lost, I felt better than I had in a long time.

**ѠѠѠ**

I wasn't lost, to my relief. The trail I had followed was fairly obvious, anyway: the leaf litter was disturbed and many branches and twigs were broken along the route my spontaneous run had taken through the brush. Within an hour, I had arrived at the site where my clothing had been discarded, only to see that It was missing. A barb of trepidation bit into me, lodging somewhere in my stomach.

Another few minutes of walking led me to the clearing where we had bedded down. I exhaled quietly when I saw Gankomomo and the twins in the clearing. Shiroganehiko and Koganehiko sat around last night's rekindled fire. I came into the clearing from behind Shiroganehiko, as bare as the day I woke up. Koganehiko looked up upon glimpsing my movements out of the corner of his eye. He nudged Shiroganehiko, who turned to look at me. I silently and shamelessly made my way across the clearing, and ensured that my emotional mask was in place before speaking.

"It's been a crazy night."

Neither of them spoke.

"The blood doesn't belong to a person."

The usually stoic face of Koganehiko furrowed slightly at its brow.

_Shouldn't have raised the possibility._

"So...do you guys have my clothing?"

My question seemed to galvanize a change in the pair's behavior; Koganehiko began packing Gankomomo with our bags of food, and Shiroganehiko handed me my clothing, neatly folded with my other accessories.

I had just tied my obi when Shiroganehiko approached the topic that was, I'm sure, at the front of everybody's mind. "Higekimaru-san, forgive my curiosity, but where did you go last night, and what did you do?"

I shuttered my eyes for an instant before placing my bamboo mask over my face. "I hunted a deer."

Koganehiko frowned from his sitting position. "What did you kill it with?" he asked me, a frown pinching at the corners of his eyes.

Without answering, I began examining the cleanliness of my ungloved hands, turning them to outline my claws white against night-colored fur.

Shroganehiko trudged off after muttering an uncharacteristically foul word.

**ѠѠѠ**

The fire crackled, its irregular whispers the only sound to break the clearing's silence. I sat next to it and brooded.

_I feel great. But at the same time...I basically mauled an animal._

I understood that predation was a perfectly natural aspect of nature. That concept wasn't the issue.

_I'm not human._

I thought back to the night previous.

_And I'm not a beast._

I thought of my own moral compass, flighty and temperamental as it was.

_The issue is that I don't understand what I am._

It was a matter of self-definition. I had dickered over my name, and still, at times, I wondered about the prudence of my choice. My concern with it was a matter of vanity, to be sure; but more importantly, it was a matter of identity. I had chosen a name, and thus defined my identity with it. But my identity, be it as man, beast, or something between the two, wasn't stable. At times, I felt almost human. Then, at other times, I felt so wild and alien that I found my own mind to be incomprehensible.

At that moment, even, the problem persisted: I was lucid and calm, and felt for once, devoid of hunger. But that sense of humanity had been engendered by decidedly feral actions, actions that I couldn't bring myself to regret.

I turned a contemplative eye to Koganehiko, who sat across from me, only to meet his eyes, which stared at my mask with the calm curiosity present in the eyes of many intelligent men. I wondered what he thought of me.

_Does he see a monster or a man? Or maybe a bit of both? Logically, the last choice makes the most sense. Of course, asking him to form a worthwhile opinion of me is ridiculous, since he's only known me for a few days._

I asked him anyway. "Koganehiko-san, what do you think of me? I mean...do you think I'm something evil?" Silently, I mocked myself, for the childish tone that question had bore as it passed my lips.

He stirred at my inquiry, and looked at me askance, from his cross-legged sitting position. "I think you are a man, Higekimaru-san. Just...a troubled one. There's no reason for me to see you as anything else, is there? No, you're merely a man with unusual predilections."

_"__Unusual predilections?" That was useless. He doesn't know me. I don't know why I bothered to ask._I removed my headgear and drank a portion of water.

_I suppose it doesn't matter. One doesn't need purpose, or identity, to live._

I shifted closer to the fire, chilled by the wind.

**ѠѠѠ**

Shiroganehiko returned with impressive haste, leading a steer and a goat. The former had several ropes strung over its back, with a chicken in a cage on either side with the rope tied around the handles of each cage, each sitting docilely. A macabre part of me wondered if they'd resigned themselves to their fate. We readied Gankomomo and retraced our route to Shiba's as fast as possible. My actions had already made us late. The trip was made in silence, while I reprised my actions on the initial trip by removing my mask and inhaling deeply, savoring the taste of life the air carried.

The hunger was there, but only just. My feeding had very much allayed it. I even felt happier, and the air seemed to be sweeter, and the few birds that hadn't fled from winter's rapidly encroaching grasp seemed to sing more brightly. The only negative aspect of the journey was the tension in apparent in Shiroganehiko's actions, which were, in retrospect, justified.

**ѠѠѠ**

Upon reaching the Shiba homestead, the twins and I took the animals aside to several pens and stables, malodorous places that left me desiring a bath. We then carried all of the provisions into the house's food storage areas in two trips performed under Shiba's peridot gaze. I found the work to be refreshing in a way, since that day's exertions had, until then, been comprised solely of walking. I liked physical engagement, and still do. After concluding our duty, the twins and I ate a simple meal of rice porridge. Disgusting stuff, to me at least; chalky, sweet goo that stuck to the roof of my mouth, compromising my sense of smell.

Within the hour, Shiroganehiko and Shiba had conferenced privately, and I had been summoned by Shiba into a subterranean training hall beneath the house. Its tatami flooring pressed into my feet as I entered, anxiety mounting.

_I already got into a spat with her at breakfast that one time. She could throw me out. And then what would I do? I can't head to what amounts to a city-state filled with people until I learn to control myself. Without killing things, that is._

Shiba sat in the light shed by the inexplicable portals set recessed into the ceiling, some three meters into the well-lit room. Her eyes traced over my approaching form. I sat in front of her, casually, and folded my hands in my lap.

The silence was broken by her first. "I heard you had an interesting trip."

_If she wants to play at being indirect, so can I. _

"The great marketplace is a fascinating place," I stated quietly, hoping the snark would amuse rather than irritate her.

It didn't. She moved forward suddenly, and with great speed, cuffed the side of my head with enough force to bowl me over from my sitting position. Pain blossomed across the side of my head, and I stifled a whimper. The blow itself wasn't painful, but instead, it was rather frightening. Shiba was, and presumably still is, like a force of nature. Mercurial, forceful, and violently unafraid of getting involved in anything she deemed relevant.

Before I could climb back to my feet, Shiba was on me again. This time, she tore off my mask and tossed it back to the spot where she had previously been sitting, before moving in a flicker of shadow to return next to it.

I still didn't know how she moved like that.

Without speaking, Shiba took out her pipe and lit it. The smoke coiled up to the well-lit ceiling and dissipated, perfuming the room with its offensive odor. I dusted myself off, and waited.

Shiba glanced at the floor momentarily, as if marshaling her thoughts, and put her eyes on mine. "Look, punk. You can't go around doing this crap." She took another drag from her pipe and continued, "If there's something you need to do, then tell someone about it first. And I expect you to keep yourself under control. If you can't, then our deal's off, and you're out of my house. Got it? No more unpredictable bullshit. I think I understand why you did what you did, but feel free to explain yourself anyway." She clamped her pipe between her teeth and crossed her arms, waiting for me to respond.

I remained silent. _What do I do now? Just tell her everything? I don't see any good coming of that...but she said that she had an idea as to my reasons of her own, and she might be off with it. __Though she's a very astute woman._

She extended a hand towards my face. I caught her wrist. "Don't do that, please."

Shiba harumphed. "Then explain yourself, idiot."

I gritted my teeth. Those insults were annoying, each one like a sharp stone grating on the surface of the rough pride that seemed to be woven into my character, eroding my already questionable emotional well-being and impulse control. "Fine. Stop insulting me."

Shiba remained silent, shifted her pipe in her mouth, and looked at me; tacit permission for me to begin speaking.

Hesitating, I considered the wisdom of what I was about to do. Then, like the night previous, I discarded my self-control in favor of doing what I wanted.

_Because it's the better choice, _I told myself.

That day, around three or four in the afternoon, for the first time, I showed someone else everything that I kept hidden. I told her about the circumstances of my suicide attempt, and my fears for the future, I told her about the poor old woman I robbed, and the fact that I only felt regret and shame regarding my actions to date. I told her about my routine night terrors and insomnia. And I told her about how blissful it had felt when I stopped trying to resist my own drive to feed.

By the time I had finished, over an hour had passed, and Shiba had set aside her pipe in favor of a tray of small confections and a pot of tea brought in by Koganehiko. When I at last fell silent, Shiba responded thoughtfully. She chewed her dessert meditatively, swallowed, and said two words.

"I see."

I opened my jaw slightly, struck dumb by the brevity and apparently arbitrary nature of her words. After that cathartic deluge of words, all she could say was "I see?"

Unacceptable.

Just as I opened my mouth to voice that opinion, Shiba spoke.

"I'm not really surprised." she said. "You don't look like a normal human being, so it seems unfair to expect you to be one. My best friend spends most of her time as a cat anyway, so it doesn't seem _that_ unusual to me."

The weight lifted from my shoulders as I quietly took in a beath, slightly shaky from sheer relief. "I suppose," I asked, "that she's the one I remind you of?"

Shiba nodded. "Yep."

Abruptly, she sprung to her feet, and began to leave the room. "Don't forget to study; I want your first lesson to be tomorrow. And clean up the tea set."

I stood and called, "Wait. Would please answer two more questions?"

My employer stopped. "What is it?"

_I've got a selection of questions that need answering, but for now..._

_"_Why is Shiroganehiko so pissed at me?" I asked, to resolve the question that had been bothering me since that morning.

Shiba turned to me and scowled. "Don't earn your name, idiot. He told me you were covered in blood when you came back from your night out. Don't you think that might freak someone out? Hm? Not to mention, it was his job to keep an eye on you, and you disappeared on him. He's pissed because you made his job difficult."

_I see._

"One more. Why did you take my mask off of me?"

Shiba turned to leave. The only response she offered was "I felt like it." With that, Shiba left the room, shutting the shoji door with a quiet _tak. _I remained in my sitting position for a while longer, before I gathered the china and left the room.

_Time to help the twins with dinner. And I'd better study that book. _

**ѠѠѠ**

Later that night, after a dinner that consisted primarily of a type of chicken stew, I sat against the wall of my bedroom beneath the window and cracked open the aged volume Shiba had handed me some days previously.

The table of contents listed several fairly clear subjects, starting with an introduction titled "Basic Terminology", followed by chapters titled "Reishi", "Reiryoku", and "Reiatsu". I flipped to the first page.

_Soul society, _it read, _is occupied by all manner of souls. Traits that every soul possesses to one degree or another are things such as knowledge and/or memories of their previous lives, collectively called _**_past life retention_**_. A smaller demographic possess the urge to eat, as well as two distinct traits called _**_reiatsu_**_and _**_reiryoku_**_, which are related to a fundamental concept called _**_reishi_**_. _

_Reishi, simply put, are the primordial particles that comprise all of soul society. Reiryoku, in turn, is the energy intrinsic to reishi, and is used to fuel a soul's biological functions, cast kidō, and perform actions such as using shunpo and releasing one's zanpakuto. _

I paused, curiosity aroused by the use of unfamiliar terms. The book lacked a glossary, so their meaning was left obscure. I made a mental note to ask Shiba about them tomorrow. The remainder of the chapter expounded on reiatsu and other basics, such as hado, which are destructive combat kidō, and bakudo, a classification that encompasses all manner of kidō that fall outside of the classification of hado, such as barriers and binding techniques like the one Yamada used at the marketplace around a week earlier.

I tilted my head at the thought. It seemed like so much more time had passed. _Probably because of all of the highs and lows I've experienced since then._

I didn't sleep that night. Reading through the next three chapters, which covered the basics of the physics involved with reishi, reiryoku, and reiatsu took me until the early hours of the morning. I drifted off, only to be woken a short time later by nightmares. This time, they involved monsters wearing masks.

The hunger had made a vicious return, and it harried me ceaselessly until morning.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I'm so sorry this crappy chapter has taken so long. It's inexcusable, and I have no intention of taking so long to turn out such a bad product in the future. As the title of this chapter suggests, it's the conclusion of this 'arc,' if I can apply such a term to a story as plotless as this. So, before I start the next one, I'd like to do a short series of brief one- to three-shots about other major original characters (read: Higekimaru's classmates) to get my characterization solidly founded, and introduce them. They're mostly pretty interesting people, with personalities that range from angsty to boringly well-balanced. If you guys would like me to, I'll publish a drabble series about day-to-day events at the Shiba clan household sometime, since this thoroughly unsatisfactory arc was lacking in some aspects of character development. There'll be a poll about it on my profile. Just to let you guys know, I've started favoriting other stories that are all way better than this, so feel free to check them out. Two more final things: thank my angelically gothic beta reader WeepingCadaver for whatever enjoyment may be derived from this chapter, and:**

**I don't own Bleach. Obviously. **

**Chapter Five: Homestead Arc Conclusion: Advances and Setbacks**

I rose with the sun the following morning, bleary and nursing what I knew would likely mature into a magnificent headache later that day. Despite my malaise, the prospect of my upcoming training thrilled me. For a moment, while I shrugged on my clothing, I entertained fantasies of power; of being able to exterminate the mysterious hollows I'd heard of with a single hadō, or raise a man from near-death with medical kidō.

_It's a nice dream, but this is going to take a lot of work, most likely, _I reminded myself, irritated with my childishly self-indulgent thoughts.

Exactly how I was to be trained in the practical use of kidō remained a mystery. I sat without speaking while Shiba ate. Upon finishing, she rolled her armless shoulder and rubbed it, thoughtfully eyeing my concealing outfit. The silence dragged on for a long time, though I remained silent.

_ Polite deference is how I should be treating her anyway, _I reasoned,_ since she's my hostess and employer. Still annoying, I guess._

Finally, Shiba spoke. "My brother Ganju should be coming home today. He'll be in around noon, so we'll be seeing him after your instruction."

I nodded.

"Then let's get started. Lose the mask and gloves, and get the book I gave you the other day, then meet me downstairs, pronto." Her brusque instructions concluded, Shiba left for the staircase leading to the basement, or subbasement, rather, that she used for training.

I left the twins to clean up the remainder of our meal, and met Shiba several minutes later, instructions completed to the letter. I was still excited, but at that time, my anticipation had been tempered with nerves and a distinct sense of exposure without my hood and mask.

_ What if I'm not up to this? _I worried, stretching before entering the basement. _What if I end up snapping at Shiba again? I'm perfectly composed now, but I also feel like shit, so that could change at any time._

Upon arriving, I saw that the door was open and, as always, the area was well lit. I approached the entryway eagerly. Shiba stood in the center of the expansive, low-ceilinged hall. As I approached her, I noticed that I was taller than her, which was surprising indeed; Shiba, to me at least, had seemed obdurate and dangerous for the duration of my acquaintance with her.

The moment my tabi-clad foot crossed the threshold, Shiba shifted on the spot. "Stop."

Crossing my arms, I halted. "Alright. So, what are we going to do?" Shiba ignored my question. I swung my tail in a broad arc towards the floor; a silent expression of my weary frustration with Shiba's conversational practices.

"Question number one! How did I know you were there?" she asked, turning to face me.

I blinked. "I assume you heard me."

"Nope. You were silent, remarkably so, and I'm at least five meters from you. Try again."

I considered the question, and recalled a passage from my reading. It was on reiatsu, and read: "_One's reiatsu is directly proportionate to their reiryoku. It can be suppressed or flared as the situation demands." _The book then contained a table of possible scenarios in which flaring or suppressing reiatsu was recommendable, with explanations as to why. The entry relevant to this question was under suppressing reiatsu, and stated that one's reiatsu could easily be used by anyone competent with the reiatsu manipulation to track their position.

Quietly thrilled at my own certainty, I answered Shiba's question. "You felt my reiatsu."

"Right! Get in here. So, the first thing you need to learn is how to feel reiatsu. Once you learn that, you can learn to control yours. That's the first step to using kidō. Also, it's a basic skill any shinigami should know, so it's better you're learning it now, anyway. See if you can feel mine."

I entered into the hall before stopping and attempting to focus. There I stood for several minutes, growing increasingly frustrated with myself as I struggled to grasp what I was looking for. There was a feeling, faint, but there, in the very edges of my perception. Not a sight, or sound, or physical sensation, but a sense of _presence. _A sort of force emanated from Shiba, one that grew easier to grasp as I, having stilled my body entirely, focused to the exclusion of all else save my irritatingly loud pulse. "I think I have it."

Briefly nodding, Shiba said, "You need to be more sensitive—I was focusing my reiatsu to make it a little easier to feel. Now, I'm gonna concentrate my reiatsu even more. See if you can use the contrast between mine and yours to define your own reiatsu."

An instant later, I felt the familiar force bearing down on me in a steady trickle. As the pressure exerted by the wall of energy increased, I found a sort of cutoff, where its intensity sharply tapered, which surrounded me in a perfect circle. Genuine excitement sparked within me, despite my lethargy.

"I've found it!It's around five meters across and I'm in the center of it."

Shiba dropped to the floor and sat cross-legged. I followed suit after threading my tail through a slit in the back of my clothing. "Alright. Now, what's kidō?" she asked, refusing to offer praise just yet.

It took a moment for me to realize the question was directed at me, rather than being rhetorical. "Ah, it's the manipulation of one's reiryoku and reiatsu to effect a change on the world, like creating a construct of some kind, or attacking."

Shiba grunted affirmatively. "Right. And because I'm suddenly remembering how boring theory is, I'm going to show you the most basic hadō in existence. Then, we'll talk about it." She pointed a finger at me.

_She's not going to-_

_ "_Hadō number one: Shō."

With a flare of light from her fingertip, an invisible force struck me across my chest, sending me hurtling backwards painlessly before rolling to a stop on the floor near the door, facedown. Mutely, with eyes closed, I laid on the floor where I had come to a stop, taking in a deep breath of air scented with dust and sweat from the cold ground of the hall. With a grunt, I pushed myself into a sitting position against the wall, suddenly feeling ill. The night previous had been my worst so far, and all of the monsters that had taken up residence inside my cave of a chest seemed to feed on my exhaustion. _I'm too tired to get angry, _I groaned to myself. _There's nothing that I'd like more than to slip into some soft bedding and sleep, for just a little while. Or forever. _My ears pricked up as Shiba approached me, though my eyes remained closed.

Cautiously, Shiba nudged me with her foot. "You're fine. Get up."

_ Yeah. Forever sounds nice_

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite childish enough to continue to ignore the world outside my eyelids. Lazily, I opened one, catching Shiba's eye, which hovered centimeters away from the end of my broad nose.

"Fuck you. That wasn't necessary at all, and you know it," I growled, baring a fragment of my teeth.

A look of harsh irritation sparked beneath Shiba's brow. Pulling back her foot to deliver a kick, she stopped abruptly; forestalled, I think, by the look in my eyes.

Looking up at her, I grabbed her foot. "Don't do that."

My other hand, which propped up the side of my head, tensed with the rest of me as I continued looking at her, feeling my own weakness and inferiority in the face of a superior force.

Releasing Shiba's foot, I broke eye contact as I crossed my legs, pondering a way to get my point across peacefully. Silent, Shiba grabbed her armless shoulder—her version of crossing her arms-and looked back down at me.

"You, of all people, know what a bad night entails for me. Last night was the worst yet, and those _feelings_ are pretty vocal right now," I began, still unsure of what I intended to say. I turned my throbbing head to once again seek Shiba's attention. "I'd just like to try and avoid conflict for the time being, if you don't mind. I've told you this stuff; you know enough to figure out how I feel. I can't deal with crap like this from you right now."

Uncharacteristically contrite, Shiba dropped into a crouch in front of me, flowing hair trailing behind her as she moved. "Can you continue or not?"

I set the back of my head against the wall. "Yeah, after a breather."

My hand found its way to my brow, where it began rubbing. "You know, none of those things ever really go away."

"I know. Are you alright?"

I chuckled sardonically and more than a little sadly at the question. "Not really. Those things are always there, twenty-four-seven, just waiting for me to lose control, and it's-"

I broke off and shook my head as my voice cracked under the duress of my emotions.

_Okay, that's close enough._

I cleared my throat and settled my self into a mask of cool composure before continuing."It's awful, sometimes. And you tend to do things that make it really hard for me to keep my cool. But still, I guess that's better than being treated like a patient in some psych ward, if you even know what that means."

Shiba jabbed me. "I'm not an idiot, Higekimaru-kun. I know what a psych ward is." She began fussing with the bandages on her head, rewrapping them for comfort's sake. Shiba continued for several minutes before speaking. "This is still gonna be a problem when you're at the academy, you know. How're you gonna pull off the hood and mask in close quarters with a city-state's worth of people around you?"

It was a good question, one that I had no idea how to answer.

"Oh God, I don't know. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."

"Hm. Great plan," muttered Shiba sarcastically.

I turned to look at her, composure slipping once more. "That sort of thing is exactly what I mean."

"You'll have to put up with other people in the future too. I've been pretty good—and by that, I mean bhudda-like—with the mask and hood, but others aren't going to be. What'll you do then? I'm sure there are gonna be other academy students that get on your nerves too, not to mention your superior officers. You'd better get used to dealing with other people."

My tail thumped against the floor, a sure sign of my slow-burning anger.

_She has a point._

Mustering the fortitude to continue the conversation, I looked over into my teacher's stony eyes, and said, "I know, Shiba-sensei. And there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about all the reasons that becoming a shinigami might not work out. But if it means that I'll become more powerful, or learn more, or find a way to fix all of this-" I pointed at my face with a thumb, sick of everything it entailed "-then I'll take my chances. Also, I doubt that others are going to be assaulting me when it's not even vaguely appropriate."

There was a lull in our conversation.

"I'm sorry about the hadō."

"What?"

Shiba lolled her head against the wall to look at me, and rolled her eyes slightly. "I'm sorry about the hadō, already. You're fine, things'll sort themselves out. I want to get back to the lesson."

"Thanks, then, I guess. And yes to the lesson, but one thing first: no more tricks like earlier."

"I'll play nice if you do."

"Alright, then...fair enough."

**ѠѠѠ**

For the next hour, Shiba and I analyzed what had happened when she had cast her kidō, then worked on getting my reiatsu to mimic the way hers had moved; first, with flares and caltrops of light, then with actual currents of force. It was difficult, but engaging, and in spite of my sour mood, I enjoyed myself, because the stimulation offered by the novel experience of manipulating my reiatsu served as an excellent distraction, and the intellectual stimulation it offered intrigued me.

I'm proud to say that, despite my state of mind, I learned extremely quickly. Around two hours of discussion and practice later, I cast my first kidō. Due to the stunning simplicity of the spell's mechanics, it lacks an incantation, unlike most others. I pointed my index finger at Shiba, and quietly voiced the name of the casting.

"Hadō number one: Shō."

Then, the spell sparked along my finger, and Shiba was propelled backwards a meter or so, despite her token attempt at nullifying it. At that moment, a feeling of triumph and power ran through me, one that I'd neither experienced before, nor experienced since. I'll remember that moment and everything about it for the rest of my life, for one reason: that was the moment I became an addict. My stimulant of choice, obviously, isn't a pill, or a powder, or a drug of any kind. It's knowledge.

It's a hell of a fatal flaw.

Shiba concealed her reaction behind a layer of blasé boredom, but I thought she was pleased, nonetheless. She stood to leave and, over her shoulder, said to me,"Good work today. Next lesson's on Monday, so work on mastering Shō, and study the reiatsu manipulation pattern for Bakudō number one: Sai. It's in your book. And Ganju should be around in the next hour or so, so get ready to meet him. Then you can take the day off."

_Shiba's been incredibly good to me so far. And look how I've paid her back. Shameful._

I said something quietly, yet perfectly audibly in the chamber's silence.

"Shiba-sensei...thank you. For everything."

Shiba only snorted, and with a flick of her unrestrained locks, said, "I think your sleeping issue's giving you mood swings."

I considered that statement, sarcastic though it may have been, while I closed the door of the training hall. She was, I decided, probably right.

**ѠѠѠ**

_Is this really the guy that stopped me from offing myself?_

My initial opinion of Shiba Ganju was less than charitable. He stood a few centimeters shorter than I, and wore an open brown vest over a sort of sleeveless uwagi above a simple pair of trousers and a cloth that he used to tie his hair into a lose ponytail. While it's true I still felt like a bear, Ganju would've been uninspiring on one of my best days.

His behavior was the primary inspiration for my base opinion of him; after scrambling into the homestead's main room nearly half an hour late, Ganju had been beaten to the ground by Shiba in a display of aggression the likes of which I'd never observed from her before. At least when Shiba hit me, which was an extremely infrequent experience, she had refrained from using acrobatic kicks.

_It's inspirational in a way, _I commented to myself as Shiba finished working her younger brother over, _how capable Shiba remains of abusing her family members despite missing a major body part._

Three of Ganju's four cohorts sidled over to me as he finished begging for the forgiveness of his "magnanimous nee-sama." I thought them to be a distinctly unremarkable and disreputable bunch; one sported a fauxhawk and sunglasses, the next a ridiculous afro, and the third was a sunken-eyed bald giant of a man—if I was less sangfroid and thorny in reaction to the day's emotional exertion, I might have found him intimidating. The fourth, who was a man with odd green hair dressed in a woman's kimono and sporting a massive timepiece on his back, vanished after muttering something about making lunch.

As the familial debacle in front of us concluded, the three muscular men stared at my mask before the shortest member, whom I dubbed Fauxhawk, moved forward and looked up into my mask from centimeters away, and asked me, "So...what's with the mask, etoranze-san?"

I stared down at his compact form from behind the two-centimeter bamboo barrier.

_What an irritating man._

He leaned even closer, extending a finger to poke at my mask.

_Back off, asshole._

My next actions were the bastard children of those thoughts, and displayed a regrettable disregard for the agreement between Shiba and I. Applying the fruits of the day's studies, I enveloped the man in a stifling cloud of my energy, and tried to bear it down on him.. To my intense gratification, it worked: he visibly paled, and broke off his attempts to make eye contact. The monster inside me roared its satisfaction and bloodlust as Fauxhawk's lips twitched and the delicious aroma of anxiety found its way past my mask into my mouth and nostrils. His two peers moved to flank him, and each stared back at my blank face as they ratcheted up their own reiatsu to match mine.

They were barely present in terms of reiryoku, I could tell, but the three of them together outclassed me easily. I was weak, and they knew it. The four of us continued our silent showdown for less than a minute before Shiba intervened.

She approached, and I immediately suppressed my reiatsu as best I could, shame turning my face to the floor. To my surprise, Shiba sternly laid green eyes heavy with promises of retribution on the trio of wanderers instead of myself. They broke rank, looking away from the two of us, and their combined spiritual pressure evaporated as suddenly as a droplet of water in the glare of a summer sun.

Then Shiba spun around suddenly, hair fanning out behind her as she moved, and in a remarkable display of martial prowess, delivered a kick to my diaphragm faster than even I could see.

Hacking out a gargling cough, I skidded on the balls of my feet across the floor, before falling forward, stomach threatening to rebel. My shoulders heaved as I lay on the floor, supported only my quaking arms.

_Damn, she packs a punch._

I clenched my jaw against the nausea that washed over me, and thanked the heavens I had had the foresight to don a pair of tabi in addition to my normal disguise. Shame burned at the base of my throat, and there it lodged itself, sharp as the tips of my claws and even more prone to causing me harm.

Shiba flickered toward me and dropped down to a kneeling position to speak into my ear. "Remember our agreement. This is my damn house, asshole, and the only one allowed to pick fights is me." Her hand grabbed the bottom of my mask and lifted it upwards, forcing me to look at Ganju's gang. The man himself had joined them, and looked with a scowl, apparently content to allow Shiba to exact her punishment. She was happy to oblige.

Shiba looked over her shoulder, and, with a smile in her voice, said, "I'm sorry about that. We're trying to train him not to snap at strangers. Otōto, say hello to your new personal retainer."

_Goddamnit._

**ѠѠѠ**

Speaking with the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight, it wasn't such a terrible thing. Ganju was, and presumably still is, a good man. But that didn't mean he was happy with me. It was my job to sit seiza style for the duration of the meal and serve the Shiba siblings, pouring their tea, serving their food, and clearing the table when each course concluded.

Throughout the entirety of the meal, I focused on ignoring both the steadily building sensation of pins and needles in my legs and the increasing desire to hurt something. With only a condensed lesson from Shiroganehiko, I found myself struggling to maintain proper decorum as my calves cried out for freshly circulated blood. _I'm supposed to be flexible._ _Why, in the name of God, does this hurt?_

Shiba held out her cup to be refilled without breaking eye contact or pausing in her conversation with Ganju, amused by my anger. _How, _I pondered, my face studiously blank behind the mask, _does Shiba manage the paradox of being a charismatic, altruistic, manipulative bitch? Not to mention, she seems to have forgotten our deal more than I did._

The meal concluded, and I bussed the heavily loaded table, the looming specter of cleaning the dishes involved with a large multiple-course meal inspiring a sense of fatigued dread. With a clink and a rattle, I deposited my burden on a low table off of the kitchen, and slowly stretched down to the floor in an attempt to revive my quadriceps.

"Higekmaru-san, Ganju-sama requests your presence."

I started, straightening abruptly. "Jesus, how do you do that?"

Koganehiko pointed to the washing, ignoring my semi-rhetorical question. "I'll start on the cleanup, Higekimaru-san."

"Right, thanks, I'll go see what Ganju_-sama _wants." I removed my mask and sunk my head into a leather-clad hand, rubbing my forehead. The hunger was still there. It was becoming frighteningly insistent, and I hadn't eaten dinner. Not that any normal food served to do more than take the edge off. Koganehiko looked on silently, concerned. Answering the implied question, I snapped, "I'm fine. I have to go attend to Ganju now. Where's your other half?" Koganehiko cocked one of his sparse eyebrows.

_Right. No apparent sense of humor._

I sighed exasperatedly at him. "You know exactly who I mean. Shiroganehiko-san."

His ersatz expression of confusion vanished. "Aniki is attending to Ganju-sama's steed, Bonnie-chan, and his men, whom Shiba-sama generously allows to sleep on the house grounds."

"Oh, right. Of course."

_Bonnie-chan?_

**ѠѠѠ**

I kneeled in front of Ganju, feeling naked as he regarded my unmasked face, tranquilly sipping at a cup of floral sake. Its odious sweetness disgusted me. "I've been around," remarked Ganju, "but I've never seen someone quite like you. Heard about a dog monster once, out in the Rukon, but never actually saw it. But that's besides the point. What happened between you and my men?"

I pulled my hood back up and replaced my bamboo mask.

_Pathetic, _I thought, as a relieved sigh almost escaped my mouth. _How did I suddenly become dependent on these?_

At Ganju's prompting, I answered his question. "Nothing. The blond one got on my nerves, so I thought I'd practice reiatsu manipulation in a practical context."

Ganju scowled and gestured at me with his free hand. "You sound just like one of the Shinigami captains with that attitude, punk."

_I have no idea why that's supposed to be offensive._

"Pardon my juvenile actions, Ganju-sama. I've been getting irritable due to a lack of sleep, and hunger. Speaking of which, may I be excused to take dinner?"

"No."

Slowly and silently, I exhaled. "Then what would you have me do?"

Ganju silently scratched his chin, pondering the question. "Well, my clothing needs washed, but it's a bit late in the day for that. Here, polish this."

With little warning, he threw me his cleaver, followed by a rag and a flask of liquid.

"Oh, and go scrub my shoes. They're a little muddy."

"Yes, Ganju-sama," I answered, resentment curdling inside me at my own humiliation and culpability for my circumstances.

**ѠѠѠ**

The geta were the easiest of the two: ten minutes with a brush and a basin of water produced a finished product to be left out overnight to dry. Frowning, I turned to the blade Ganju had given me. It sat in its brightly colored banded sheath, casting a stark shadow against the wood of Shiba's porch in the late afternoon sun.

A whiff test of the fluid in Ganju's flask revealed it to be some sort of oil, likely intended to be used to polish blades. Shrugging, I placed the rag over the mouth of the bottle and inverted it, dampening the cloth with sword oil, wrinkling my nose against the stuff's odor. Carelessly, I began stroking down the side of the blade, unconcerned with my technique.

_What do I care if I'm not doing this right? Not my blade._

That task took up the greater part of half an hour, time that I spent attempting to ignore the throbbing pain behind my eyes that was intensifying with my hunger pangs.

After returning his cleaver, I skipped out on Ganju as soon as possible and before he could pass judgment on my shoddy handiwork, intent finding something to eat.

**ѠѠѠ**

Dinner, as it turned out, consisted of leftover sticky rice and cold tea, both of which I considered to be fit for only humans or the things I should eat. With that thought in mind, I slipped out to the lean-to where we confined the house chickens, of which three remained, to see if the hens had laid any eggs. As I approached their cages, the haze of my hollowness grew more intense with the stench of animals imprisoned and vulnerable, until it reached my breaking point with a suddenness that stunned me.

_Thud. _Staggering away from the lean-to and small stable, I slammed the side of my fist into the side of Shiba's home, barely aware of a ferocious pain in the right side of my hand. The thirst for violence I was accustomed to living with hadn't raised its head-it had begun devouring me, drying my throat and stroking my heart into a frenzied tempo as my limbs shook and my blood ran as cold as the fingers chasing up my spine; and I knew that giving in would feel better than anything.

_This is different._

The night I had first fed on that stag, I'd been lucid, and I'd loved every second of it. The primal energy of my unslaked craving had propelled me inexorably forward, past any inhibitions or regrets, like a surging river might propel a raft constructed of logs and hope.

_This...lust...it's like something pulling me down. Pulling me down into blackness I'll never get away from._

A cold yellow feeling was born in my gut as I slumped down against the base of the porch, looking up into the disinterested countenances of God and his angels shining in the frosted sky, still dyed with the fading blush of sunset. A shuddering breath was sucked in and expelled slowly.

_This is two breakdowns in one day._

I knew that giving in would be easy. I also knew with horrifying certainty that it would obliterate the thin lines that defined me as something more than beast, if they'd ever existed to begin with. My mask was flung away from me as if it were a talisman of the demon whose empty eyes looked into mine.

"_And when you gaze long into an abyss..."_

I cast my gloves aside and tore open my robe, and the horror manifested physically as an ache in my chest as I heaved out a another shuddering, gasping breath, and-

_"...the abyss also gazes into you."_

**ѠѠѠ**

By the time my disappearance had been noticed, it was too late to stop me. I was found surrounded by the mangled corpses of the house chickens, covered with blood, feathers, and self-inflicted wounds, asleep in a corner. I have no recollection of the event itself, only the results: Ganju and the twins' disgust, my shame (experienced in an oddly distant manner), an abundance of feathers caught in my teeth, and the demons that fell blessedly silent, if only for another day or two. But most of all, I remember and regret Shiba's expression. Eyes flashing, mouth open and fist clenched, eyebrows brought together in an expression of anger mingled with the unthinkable: pity.

That one sight, seen as Shiroganehiko doused me with a bucket of water to pull me out of my post-feed slumber, tore me up more than my claws ever did. With a muttered promise to return, Shiba pulled me to the kitchen, and taciturnly offered me a wet cloth to wash with. The silence persisted, save for the wet whisking noise of sodden cotton dragged over fur, until I looked into Shiba's eyes, praying to the god I didn't believe in that she would understand.

Her eyes met mine, angered, yet softer and sadder than I'd ever seen them.

"Oh god, Shiba-sensei. I just want this to stop." My injuries throbbed as I spat a bloody strand of feather—once pale brown, now tainted burgundy red—into the basin we used for cleaning dishes. "Please. If this happens again, Shiba-sensei..."

I swallowed as the words came to my mouth, tasting of my weakness and of self-worth that had been damaged beyond repair.

"Please kill me. I don't want to do this," I sobbed out, cracking finally and unsure of what I was referring to in my grief. Unbidden, my head fell into my hands, and Shiba stretched out an arm to me, circling me around the shoulders and pulling me close to her.

"Alright, fine. I promise."

She fetched me a jar of pungent green ointment to apply to my scratches while I sat in the kitchen, wrapped loosely in a sleeping yukata sporting a silhouette of a snowdrop flower on a maroon field. I accepted it from her, spent and sick of myself. I swiped my finger through the cream and began dabbing the stinging paste on the worst of my wounds-new scars to accompany the first set.

Shiba leaned against the wall across from me, watching me work. "You don't want to do this again. I'm going to have a hard enough time explaining this to Ganju."

I flinched at her words; my pride, which had already proven lofty enough to be cumbersome, now lay at the base of its former perch, shattered.

"I know. And I don't want to, either. I just can't control this." I continued to treat a puncture wound on the inside of my left arm.

_Probably from my teeth._

"Shiba-sensei, this wasn't like the first time. That time was...you know, _good._ I felt alive after it, not sick to my stomach. This time...it felt like something was pulling me apart at the seams." My eyes flicked up from the contusions marring my glossy fur.

"I think it'll win next time."

**ѠѠѠ**

That night. Shiba and I stayed up late talking. About everything. We talked about her, and about her brother, whose clothing I was wearing, and about her life. I learned that her arm wasn't the only hurt inflicted on her during her long existence. We talked about me, and my future, and my current lifestyle. I told her openly about my desire, my _need _for violence, and the danger faced by anybody who allowed themselves to be vulnerable in my presence.

Those hours of quiet companionship yielded two particularly important fruit: firstly, Shiba ordered me to go hunting as often as necessary, claiming, with a shadow of her normal panache, that I was already in the hole for the chickens, and that further property damage would result in my expulsion from her property. Secondly, but no less importantly, she decided to keep me on for an extra year, to increase the time I had to figure myself out, and learn about the proper mannerisms and social graces expected in the upper ranks of the Court of Pure Souls.

Even after the major items of our conversation had been discussed and concluded, we sat together looking at the moon, having migrated outside when Shiba fetched a jug of sake and a bowl of water for her and myself, respectively. Her presence and the comfort it offered didn't heal any of my injuries, physical or otherwise, but it helped scab them over, to an extent. Beneath the silent eye of the moon, and in the rustle of the breeze over the grasses and through the forests surrounding Shiba's home, the sharp edges of my humiliation dulled, and the inflamed edges of my emotional wounds began to ache less.

Shiba retired when the gibbous moon was three-fourths of its way across the heavens. I stayed up, watching as the night abandoned its post at the sight of dawn's peach blood dying the horizon grey, then golden and orange.

I stood, and headed inside, intent on eventually apologizing to the twins and explaining my actions to Ganju.

**ѠѠѠ**

He accepted my stilted, awkward explanation with surprising equanimity. Ganju's eyes flicked to my chest twice, likely considering the injuries hidden by the thin silk of my clothing, while he looked down on my prostrate form.

"Considering the crowd nee-san hangs around with, I don't know why I'm surprised that there's a proper werepanther-thing on the list. Where'd you come from originally?"

I looked up at him from my kowtowing position. "I don't know. I can't remember my life up until a week or so ago, I thought I might have been reborn like this."

Ganju grunted disinterestedly, pouring himself another measure of mugicha.

"Personal issues aside, your punishment remains in effect, Higekimaru-kun. Go serve my men breakfast. They shouldn't be hard to find—they'll be showing up outside the house soon. You know, you're lucky they weren't around for that episode of yours last night. After you're finished there, go and see what Kūkaku wants you to do. I don't have any further need of you today."

"Yes, Ganju-sama." I bowed and began to depart to assemble the items needed to serve a simple breakfast of umeboshi, tea, and porridge.

_That went surprisingly well. Maybe Shiba talked to him first?_

"And one more thing."

"Ganju-sama?" I asked, resisting my irritation, not yet in any shape to deal with this type of servitude.

"If you pull any more of that intimidation bullshit on my men, there'll be hell to pay."

My eyes shuttered slowly in exasperation mingled with anger at myself and Ganju..

"Yes, Ganju-sama."

**ѠѠѠ**

Ganju and his cohorts departed later that same day, establishing a schedule he'd stick to in a fairly consistent manner for the rest of my tenure serving Shiba. Regretting the poor impression I'd undoubtedly left him with, I watched him touch his heels to the side of his boar before heading off. I turned to my three cohabitants who had joined me in seeing him off. Shiba's eyes caught the orange glare of the sun as she watched her sibling take his leave.

"Shiba-sensei, where is Ganju going from here?"

She laughed then, rolling her back across the pillar that she, supported by only one leg, leaned against. "Good question. That loser's been long around to have ridden through all of the outer districts of the Rukongai and then some. Never have gotten a real reason out of him for riding around with those other idiots." The twins vacated the porch silently, leaving Shiba and I alone. I soon followed suit, planning to study the material I had been given before going out for the night.

"Higekimaru."

I paused. Shiba's voice had abandoned the humor it had held mere minutes ago.

"Hm?"

"Keep it together. I've already gotten too soft, and I also don't want to be stuck with taking care of you when you go too far."

I swallowed.

"Understood."

The recent incidents had left me with much to think about. It was obvious that ignoring or putting off the need to hunt wouldn't work; all that accomplished was making me miserable. Rapidly, my issues concerning my own identity were taking part of the stage, outdone only by the disturbing affinity for violence that had manifested itself.

An explanation of my nature suggested itself, one that I would've discounted if Ganju's comments on my relationship with Shiba hadn't been on my mind.

_Werepanther._

"Were-" being Old English for "man." Man-panther. A cross-breed, a blend, a fifty-fifty split between predator and hunter-gatherer. The simplicity of the answer I'd been searching for was laughable, and intensely irritating.

_If the boot fits, I guess..._

**ѠѠѠ**

With my issues well on their way to being resolved, the rest of my habitation at the Shiba household passed quickly; Autumn succumbed to winter, with the season's first snow occurring not two days after what came to be known as "The Chicken Affair." During the ensuing period, I became familiar with numerous hunting and stalking techniques, the types of wild game available, and the infrequent hunting parties that coursed through the Rukongai.

My studies progressed even faster than they had previously, despite the exponentially increasing difficulty of each kidō, and I became what might have been called happy, with my destructive impulses collared and restrained. The development of that self-control was facilitated by my discovery of meditation, which I found to be an efficient way to quiet, though not silence, my awful and cold-blooded thirst for violence. Shiba and I came to a sort of mutually respectful understanding, and Ganju and my relationship developed to the point of distant acquaintances, though little more.

The seasons turned at a brisk pace. The winter two years later saw me begin to prepare for my departure. Not for the first time, I found myself considering my prospects for keeping a handle on myself in an environment where I'd likely be surrounded by people, and incapable of hunting. Meditation helped, I knew, but it wasn't enough on its own.

Even upon asking Shiba, the only solution I got was a suggestion that I "Get used to catching birds." A morose proposition, indeed; I despise hunting birds, and their bony, feathered bodies offer little edible meat. It was with that anxious blemish on my good mood, and more on my conscience, that I prepared the night before my departure. I regarded the pack I had assembled over a period of months, containing spares of my clothing, plus an empty ceramic jug for water, and the small amount of wages I had come to collect from serving Shiba. My pride was still there; merely tempered by reason, and I no longer felt quite as ashamed regarding my circumstances. As I settled in for what—unbeknownst to me—would turn out to be one of the last of my equivalent of restful nights for a long time, I exhaled slowly, and rotated my ears as I stretched.

_I have no idea if I'm ready for this._


End file.
